


A Trip To The Dump: [Forgotten, Unfinished & Old Drafts]

by ReaderRose



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Drabble Collection, Ficlet Collection, Garbage Dump (Undertale), One Shot Collection, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-02-10 13:52:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 62
Words: 37,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12913260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaderRose/pseuds/ReaderRose
Summary: Just a place to shove some of the works I won't finish or that I started but rewrote. I have a lot of WIPs floating around and only some of them will ever actually be published





	1. Index

Just a place to shove some of the works I won't finish or that I started but rewrote. I have a lot of WIPs floating around and only some of them will ever actually be published

 

I might use this first chapter as an index. I'm not doing that yet.


	2. Underswap Longfic Discarded Draft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a discarded draft for an Underswap/Underfell longfic I still plan to do. I decided to go in a different direction with the opener. Parts of this might still end up used. I just want a different emphasis for the start.

It was an otherwise unnoteworthy Tuesday afternoon. Monsters went about their business as usual. They worked, as usual. They played, as usual. They spared, as usual. They each lived their lives, as usual, and in a “laboratory” built beside a house in Snowdin, a skeleton came face-to-face with his overwhelming fear of failure, as usual.

  
Papyrus cracked his joints, all of them he could manage, one by one, magic that flowed invisibly between them popping and sparking to life with flickers of light and color.

He’d been working hard on this project, and now… now!!

Now it might actually be done, soon!

And that was… that was…!!!   
That was…

…scary.

 

The project itself, of course, wasn’t scary.

Well, it was, if he thought about it hard enough, it was certainly scary, the concept of punching a hole through the fabric of reality and unleashing a permanent tether to the unknowable beyond. Yeah, okay, that was definitely very scary.

But that was only scary if it worked.

And Papyrus was scared that it wouldn’t.

If it didn’t work… well…  
Well…!!!

 

Absolutely nothing would happen.

Everything would remain as it was. Reality would continue to exist as it had, and his life would remain as it was, and no one but him would ever know that he failed, because this project was very, very secret.

Regardless, the thought terrified him.

It was tempting, really, to give up now. It wouldn’t really be giving up, of course. No, definitely not. He wouldn’t call it giving up, at least. He would just… take a break. Maybe not a “break.” A breather. Yes, a breather. A step back. A re-focusing. Yeah, that was it. Papyrus wasn’t lazy. He wasn’t a quitter. He didn’t take breaks. But a re-examining… yes, yes he could do that. Absolutely.

The prospect of failure made completion of the project a looming worry, so the thought was very, very tempting. Don’t finish, and it cannot fail! ((And it cannot succeed). There was a dumb physics thing Undyne was fond of bringing up, constantly and without context or prompting, that Papyrus thought would likely be well suited to his current attitude, but he was fairly certain she just liked to gross him out and share anecdotes about the cruelty of humans gassing helpless animals in their dimensional boxes of horrors, so he refused to think of it now.)

Papyrus felt his shoulders slumping, starting at the machine, the button. All he had to do was press it. That’s all that was left.   
He didn’t want to press it.

“I SHOULD JUST PRESS IT,” he muttered to himself.

He didn’t press it.

 

His shoulders slumped further on his hesitation. He was getting his coccyx kicked by a switch he installed himself. His brother was off learning how to join the Royal Guard, sparring without a bit of hesitation or fear with one of the scariest individuals Papyrus had ever encountered, all scales, scars, and muscles, and here Papyrus was, in the shed, too scared of looking bad to himself to power up his own project.

Dad was so, so wrong about which son was the success story. Dad must have always been crazy if he thought Papyrus was the one who was going to do the name proud.

Haha, what a terrible thought! He was not going to think about that!

Nope!!!

This project wasn’t about Dad!

It wasn’t about Sans, either. It wasn’t about Undyne, and it wasn’t even about Him, anymore.

 

This project was about Papyrus!

 

How foolish of him to have forgotten that!

This project was about taking on something difficult and extensive that would distract him for a while, give him purpose, give him drive, give him life!

He’d been rather lacking in all of that for quite a while, now. He didn’t sleep, but he had a hard time getting out of bed. He was restless, yet he rarely did anything. He was bored, but he just… he didn't…

…He just didn’t.

  
But then he did! He did a thing! He started the project! He worked hard! Just like he used to! And it was going to pay off!

Yes! Because even if it didn’t work this time, he could keep working! He could keep moving! He could pick himself up, dust himself off, and try again until it did work! It wasn’t a failure if he failed the first time! It was only a failure if he stopped trying!

So he couldn’t quit now! He couldn’t fail now!

Straightening himself out, and puffing up his chest, Papyrus took advantage of the burst of unexpected optimism. He knew it wouldn’t last for long if this didn’t work, but it couldn’t work unless he tried, right?

Without allowing himself another moment of doubt, Papyrus allowed himself a deep, unnecessary breath.

He pressed the button.

  
At first, there was silence, then the whirring of fans and components, the lights on the consoles and monitors turning on, one by one.

A surge of power ripped through the building as the rest of the lights flickered out, and Papyrus held his breath. This was a failure point, drawing on enough power from the CORE. It could short circuit, it could fail right here.

The power was probably out across Snowdin, but the machine showed no signs of strain.

The young engineer watched closely at each monitor, waiting for the moment where it all went wrong.

But it never came.

Papyrus watched intently, bouncing lightly on his soles, almost vibrating, too stunned to be happy, too excited to be still.

A bright light filled the room…

…filled all of Snowdin…   
… filled everything…

…and everything c h a n g e d.


	3. Underswap Longfic Discarded Draft #2 - Angstier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is another discarded Underswap/Underfell draft that I changed around and finished up a bit to try to make somewhat stand alone. On the one hand, it's a decent character study of my Underswap Papyrus and his various problems. On the other hand, it's a little too angsty, a little too whiny, and a little too focused on things of little relevance.
> 
> Like the first draft, I may still use parts of this, particularly that bit of worldbuilding about New Home vs Home, but otherwise I'm not happy with any of this.

Papyrus tended to the plants in his room, carefully lit and insulated from the harsh cold that often filled the rest of the room. Papyrus didn't mind it (he didn't really feel cold), but he knew his little plant friend would, and he didn't want to hurt them before they had a chance to bloom!

What kind of a friend would he be if he did!?

… What kind of friend, indeed. That was a bit of a sour thought, wasn't it? 

He was going to start ruminating on this, wasn't he? Oh yes. He was. Of course he was.

 

You see, it’s not like Papyrus had any real friends to compare with.

(Ugh. Why did he let himself think about this stuff!? Stooop! It didn't matter if it was true, he didn't need to think of it constantly! Right? Was he going to stop thinking about this? No. He wasn't going to stop thinking about this.)

Undyne, maybe, sometimes, kind of… he guessed, could be considered a friend. It sometimes felt more like “shared trauma” than “cherished company,” at least these days, after, you know, well, the shared trauma and all that… And she’d been ducking his calls for weeks now, and he was starting to wonder if maybe he should just let her live her awesome life without him always butting into it to drag it back down. He was clingy, stupid; he never said the right things. She was probably recovering much better without him, and she’d always been much closer to… 

Whatever. 

Anyway. He didn't want to dwell on Undyne. It always led down  _ that _ road, and while this road was painful, at least it wasn't that road. 

Moving on. 

There was the Innkeeper Papyrus shared smokes with sometimes, but it never went beyond that, and it’s not like smoking was a common habit in Snowdin. The habit cost a fortune for anyone outside the Capital, and this was as far outside as it got before No Mon’s Land and the Wall. The dog bumming cigs off him when he was out wasn’t really enough to constitute friendship, but he’d count it before he could think himself out of it. 

+1 friend in his corner. 

He took what he could.

And next door to the Inn was Muffet’s. If you had to guess where Papyrus was at any given time, it was one of the four options, because Papyrus never went anyplace. Muffet was… not a friend. She felt like it sometimes, yes, because she was good at running a business and faux friendship was good for business. And yeah, the banter was great, he was actually getting really good at it. Sometimes he thought she bought his cool, carefree persona, and that made him feel good about himself (...and that’s… good for business, he guessed, to make him think that.). But it wasn’t a friendship. She just wanted his money, which is why he never paid. He had the money; he actually had a little jar (okay, a huge ceramic urn the size of his ribcage) in his closet with exactly what he owed. But if he paid her off, finally, she’d be happy for a day or two… and then… what? She wouldn’t care about getting her money anymore, and she wouldn’t care about him. Plus, she liked it when people were in her debt (she had too much fun with all those web metaphors to read it any other way), and it was the one way he could come up with to make her (or anyone) pay attention to him.

He knew it was manipulative… but hey, people always said he took exactly after Dad! Playing to expectations was just one more way to make people like you!

At least, he read that in a book, once.

A running list of people Papyrus knew, a check, a check, a check, and it became more and more clear just how few people he had on his side. From New Home, to Hotland, to Waterfall, to here, to the forests, and finally…

To The Door.

The Door was another in his corner. The Door was another for the list.

…Or, really, the person on the other side of the Door. He wasn’t literally friends with a door. Yet. He wasn’t quite so far gone and desperate. Only a matter of time, though, right? Heh heh… heh. It was just a joke. If doors could be friends they wouldn't choose to be his. 

Okay, no, off topic, bad. This wasn't about doors and self depreciation. (Or, well, it had been but he was trying to move it along so he could move on with his day!) This was about The Door and the monster behind it. 

He had no real picture in his head of what the person was really like. At first, when he’d discovered a voice on the other side, he’d thought he was really overachieving this time, getting to where Dad was now, without any of the extras and aging and achievements in-between, skipping right past “distinguished member of monster society” into “that crazy guy everyone's low-key afraid of” but he realized just as quickly it wasn’t really so strange for someone to still be in there. 

He’d studied books about the construction of the Ruins, back when it was Home, and it was all quite large, and, as described in  _ An Engineer’s Dark Secret _ (which Papyrus still had memorized from his university days) more structurally sound than the Capital itself. Home was built to last for eons, without power, without light, even without magic and maintenance. It was built to be a home, a shrine, a tomb, a memorial and a memory… and New Home was built to be temporary. Originally build on optimism, hopes and dreams. It was close to the Barrier for a reason. That reason was decayed and buried beneath the crypts in the castle, a child who never came of age, a plan that never came to fruition. 

A lot was done to reinforce it, to build it back up without anyone noticing its imminent fall, and Papyrus himself had been involved in that effort before he graduated and began projects like–

Ugh, wait, stop, info dumping in his own head. Sure, sure, why not. At least it wasn’t in front of anyone worth impressing! He was the only person who cared about any of this, and he knew that, but even he didn't care about this right now. He was trying to think about the Dude the Ruins!

Anyway, the point was, The Ruins were totally livable. If you didn’t mind not being a part of the CORE’s power grid (and sometimes that idea appealed quite a bit, knowing what he knew), there really was no downside to living in there. More people  _ should _ have lived there, would have lived there, probably, if not for the Door, but there was no reason why someone who could circumvent the seal, or was there before it was in place, couldn’t live on the other side comfortably. The biggest barrier was food, and he had good reason to believe his friend would not suffer any problems there. 

Papyrus didn't know much about his friend, really. They had a deep, soothing kind of voice. Friendly and cheerful, but… maybe not quite as cheerful as they wanted him to believe. They always seemed happy to hear from him, but there was a note of sadness, sometimes, that Papyrus recognized well in himself and struggled to hide at times. 

Papyrus generally imagined them as The Door itself, and sometimes when he tried to imagine the monster behind it in spite of himself, he took his cues from it. He imagined the monster like he saw the Door, simple and stately, gargantuan and ancient. Solid. Supportive… but closed and sealed. 

He understood. 

The nice thing about the Door was that it stayed closed. 

The other monster didn't have to know anything about Papyrus he didn't want them to know. They couldn't see all those tells Sans teased him about having. The way he couldn't look anyone in the eye when he was lying, the way he slouched to get out of questions he didn't want to answer, or the way he liked to tap his feet and claw at his shorts and duck into his hood and shift and bounce and sway when he was feeling anything particularly particular. He could talk all about what a cool dude he was, how casual he was and how nothing ever bothered him and how he had lots and lots of friends and was admired and adored and the Door would believe him. The Door would see no reason to call his bluffs. The Door would be unable to sense his lies. 

The Door would cheer him on all the same. 

…Which made it weird that a lot of the time, he chose to be honest with the monster behind it instead. Anxieties, worries, fears… he didn't cover them up. He shared them. It was… strange. But he usually felt better after sharing. And the monster shared back. 

More terrifying than his dark secrets to share, though, were his darker secrets, the ones he never told anyone else, the ones that could be held against him, used to manipulate him… used to use him…

Papyrus shared his hopes and dreams with the monster. So far, he hadn't regretted it. 

He knew that he would. How could he not? It was only a matter of time, but at least time went by so slowly, and for now, they were friends, and it was nice to be able to care about things again, if only for a little while.

 

So yes, he did have friends, thank you very much! It didn't matter how many stars and asterisks and footnotes he had to add to the entries in his friendship list. The pages weren't blank! He wasn't unlovable at all! 

Papyrus huffed and picked the small watering can back up before pausing to realize he didn't know if he had watered the plant or not, yet.

 

...crap! Was there a way to tell? Was it better to miss a watering or double water? What if his plant friends drowned? But what if it died of thirst!?

Easy, Papyrus. Breathe. 

He had someone he could ask! A friend he could ask! 

And he would do that! 

Right now!!   
  


(It was really nice having a reason to leave his room, again.)


	4. Frisk & Toriel & Papyrus - Discarded Draft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be the start of a ficlet that was requested on Tumblr, but I don't think setting it from Frisk's POV works all that well for the prompt. I'll write the actual ficlet at a later date and probably not use any of this.

Frisk always thought it was weird, the way that Mom got along with Sans, but never really seemed to give Papyrus much more than polite inclusions in the activities she planned with his brother in mind. They knew Mom was sort of…  _ ‘shy’ _ didn't really seem like the word. It was easier for them to understand than it was for them to name. But Mom and Sans were old friends, and Papyrus was new, a stranger, and connection through Sans aside, Mom had no ties to him. So she always seemed a little lost on how to deal with him. 

And so, even though she did try sometimes, her strategy was usually to just… not deal with him. 

And it was awkward. Because Papyrus lived here, too, and Papyrus was Frisk's friend! Aside from mom, he was the person they looked up to the most… so it was weird and it kind of hurt to see him brushed aside like that. Mom didn't mean it, and didn't mean anything by it, they knew, but Papyrus was way more sensitive to rejection than he really liked to show. 

And Papyrus… he didn’t really help. 


	5. Angsty Echo Draft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was the start of a ficlet I was going to do on Tumblr (by request) for Echo to get a happy ending, but I decided if Echo is going to have a happy ending, he's going to have to earn it first with a story or an ask blog or a comic or something first.
> 
> So I'm not finishing this.

Echo usually spent most of his time in Waterfall, but there was really no reason to, now. The Underground had gone empty. It was really just him left down here. 

It was weird, seeing it all so… Lifeless. Weird and kind of scary, because it was so easy for him to imagine that this was the way it always was, just lifeless and vacant, no hope, no love, no life, just… blank. 

Like him. 

And he knew that eventually, he would probably forget that anyone had ever lived here. He would forget that these houses once held people. Not just people, but friends, and family, and himself. 

He would forget everything, eventually. 

Maybe it was for the best, really. 

For now, the only thing that was really comforting was knowing that this emptiness was because they had all moved on to somewhere bigger and better. Echo couldn't imagine how wonderful the surface must be. It must have been so bright and full of color and sound, but that was so removed from this that he couldn't picture beyond that. What was the sun like? The clouds? The air? 

He would never know. 

It wasn't that he couldn't go to the surface, it was that he decided he was unworthy of it. Papyrus would have been, but he wasn't Papyrus. Not anymore, and possibly not ever. After all, he couldn't reconcile the differences. 

He decided it was better to just stay here. He'd really made a mess of things. It was only thanks to Frisk that he didn't make a bigger mess… and really, he thought the kind thing was to just… stay dead. Undyne would hate him like this. So would Sans. And this way, if people remembered him, they remembered the optimistic, clever skeleton who loved then all with all his soul, not the flower that tried to pretend he still could.

And if they didn't remember him… he wouldn't have to know. 

Maybe this option wasn't better, but it was easier, and he thought he deserved to finally take it easy. 


	6. Underswap Angst Fic Detour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have a Swap Sans angst fic I'm still slowly working on but I decided to de-emphasize Dadster's presence in it so consider this a deleted scene of an unpublished WIP

To say Sans was a slacker would be a must heinous insult. He worked hard when he needed to. The point was he didn't need to. He always got things done. He did his job; he did it once and twice, thrice, quice! 

(Quice? Was that a word? He would go with quice. It was now a word.)

But he'd never really tried to be anything… great? He just didn't have that ambitious side that his father had, or that his brother had… or maybe he did, and he kicked it down enough times that found itself thrown into a shallow grave of “good enough for now,” suffocating in a ditch on phoned-in efforts, while he meandered along in a quest for contentment… but who could blame him, really? 

Because look at Papyrus. He was amazing. Really, Sans couldn't think of a person more impressive. Most would name Dad (at least back in the day before all the… Yeah), but Sans would always name his brother. He was smart, sure, they were all smart, a family fill of smart, but he was also incredibly kind and he was funny and he worked so darn hard. But he wasn't happy a lot of the time. ‘Contentment’ was a myth, and ‘good enough’ was never, ever good enough and he was always so optimistic when he was working on a project because until it was done, it had so much potential… and every time it didn't work, and even when it did, the project would end and so would the enthusiasm. It didn't matter how amazing anything was that he did, it was never enough. 

And Papyrus was constantly on edge, constantly second guessing, constantly looking around the room for approval, first from Dad, when he was still hanging around, then from anyone… anyone at all. He was so unbelievably good but he refused to believe it. He took the tiniest things as a sign he wasn't great and never would be, all because good enough wasn't a thing he could ever possibly be. It was perfect, or it was pointless, and never in-between. 

And perfection was not achievable, no matter how much Papyrus tried to achieve it. 

The whole thing seemed exhausting, and Sans always got tired easily.

And Dad? Man, Sans could barely remember a time Dad had all his marbles and acted like a proper parental figure. Maybe he never did? He was driven, and a perfectionist, and tough as hell on both of them. Never  _ bad, _ never abusive, but never close, never warm. Never loving. Sans called him Dad because “Father” or “Progenitor” was much too formal, but really, honestly, he was never  _ really  _ “Dad.”

(Maybe that was why Papyrus had always… had always… Uh… he lost his train of thought. Nevermind, not important.)

Yeah, Dad had never felt like a dad, especially not to Sans… but Sans was never the favorite. 

But then the favorite almost died in an industrial accident and was currently deteriorating upstairs in his room and so far, no letter in the mail, no call on the phone, no friendly ghost with balloons and a singing telegram. 

Sans knew the man who made them had his issues. No one was quite sure exactly when his “madness” begun or the extent of it, but he seemed to manage well enough living alone and on his own and out of their lives, regardless, so it didn't feel like much of an excuse for such an absence. 

… But… nah, there was no point in thinking about this, in going down this line of thinking. It was pointless and unproductive and he'd had enough of his life go that way already. 

So Sans decided to refuse. 

He refused to let the sentiments settle into bitterness. Sans wasn't bitter. And if that man walked through the door right now, he would offer him tea, his room to stay, company and comfort food and full control over the remote control, and they would talk about the past and they would talk about the future, as many pasts and as many futures as the man wanted to talk about, and Sans would hold no grudges. He would be thankful, if anything, to feel slightly less alone right now. He'd never been lacking for friends, but maybe he'd always been wanting for family. 

 

But as it stood, that wasn't happening, and it was just one less gyftmas card he would have to send out in the mail. 

 


	7. Undyne&Papyrus - Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just part of a WIP for a Tumblr request. This part went a little long and I don't really like the writing here so if/when I continue it I'll likely scrap this part, or heavily rewrite it. As it stands, this isn't a priority, though, so it'll be a while and might end up forgotten, so to the discards it goes!
> 
> Also I have no idea if the gravity thing here makes sense. This was written in the early morning hours a month ago and I'm not looking stuff up now and revising just for this.

The first training session had been a test, but even moreso it had been revenge! This guy wakes her up, in the middle of the night, stares at her like he doesn’t even realize what he’s just done,  and then sits there and waits all night, like some kind of human specter of death at her doorstep!? 

Yeah, she was gonna test his patience just like he tested hers. 

So she set it all up, a very simple task for a very simple monster. Simple and tedious and hard and annoying, and, ultimately, pointless. Sure, she could bullshit an excuse on why it was tough warrior training or a test of skill or whatever, but it was over the top and followed a design born of spite: the most tediously dull test of strength she could come up with before morning tea. 

She found a large boulder, enchanted it with a basic charm, lead the dorky skeletal wannabe out to her neighbor's yard, and drew a box in the sand, just barely large enough to encompass the skeleton’s standing form. Then she sealed that, too, with a rudimentary charm. 

Undyne then transferred the boulder to one arm, and with the noW free arm, lifted the nuisance skeleton over her shoulder, ignoring the shrill “NYEH!!!” he responded with. 

For someone who wasn’t that much shorter than her, he was certainly light. No muscles, that was the problem. Oh well, monsters didn't need them to be strong. The real muscles were in a monster's soul… or…  _ something. _ She didn't get how other types of monsters worked, as long as they worked. 

Didn't matter. This would all be over soon enough. 

She set the skeleton in the box, handed him the giant rock, and manhandled him until his arms were in position to hold it over his head. 

The strain wasn't immediate, which was mildly impressive, but she gave it little mental note and called no attention to it. 

“ALRIGHT, PUNK! LISTEN UP!!” The skeleton seemed to increase his awareness, but didn't exactly snap to attention. Likely because of the boulder above his head. “This is your first test. It's easy. You are gonna stand here, with this boulder, and you are going to keep track of all movements the snails make. You will do this until I come to fetch you. I want DETAILED REPORTS, citizen!” She emphasized her point with a poke to the chest, half expecting the skeleton to fall right over, given how top heavy he was right now. But impressively, though there was some sway, he compensated rather quickly. “NOW, THE RULES!! While you are observing, you will NOT take any notes. It's gotta be all mental! Second rule! NO MOVING FROM THIS SPOT! Third! NO DROPPING THE BOULDER! If you break EITHER of those two times, I'll know if! You need to stay alert, and stay on task! You are not dismissed until I TELL you you are dismissed! GOT IT!?”

The skeleton twitched for a moment, as if he was about to salute before realizing he needed both his arms for the weight of the stone. This guy wouldn't last 10 minutes. “YES, CAPTAIN UNDYNE!!!”

She had to hand it to him, he did have the enthusiasm. 

Still, he wouldn't last. She knew he wouldn't last. He couldn't last.    
  


Undyne carried on with her day and slowly forgot about the skeleton she left on snail-watch duty. Nine hours passed before she was finally able to call it a day. 

When she got back, he was still there. Lasting. 

 

At first, she'd thought he cheated, and it turned out he… sorta had.

“I LOWERED MY PERSONAL GRAVITY BY 43%, AND SINCE I WAS HOLDING THE BOULDER, THAT LOWERED IT'S GRAVITY AS WELL, REDUCING THE PHYSICAL STRAIN! I COULD HAVE MADE IT WEIGHTLESS, BUT THAT WOULD HAVE CAUSED A LOT OF MAGICAL STRAIN. DOING IT LIKE THIS ENSURED I COULD STAY LIKE THIS FOR THE LONGEST AMOUNT OF TIME!!”

He hadn't moved the rock. He hadn't moved from his spot, and sure enough, he gave detailed reports on each and every snail. 

Suddenly, this unknown skeleton from the sticks, with the goofy smile and the gall to knock on her door at 1am was… actually looking like a competent and viable candidate for training. And not just toss-in-with-the-dogs-and-make-him-watch-snow training… 

Asgore had been nagging her about finding an apprentice, and she didn't like this guy that much that she was willing to put him in, but there was something about him, that passion to join, that pragmatic planning… yeah. He may have been unorthodox, but orthodox never made a human and their soul part ways, had it?

Yes, this might just be a plan. 


	8. Grillby.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a goofy opener to a fic I had no ideas for. I love this but I have no way of using it so here you go.

He was as old as time itself. He was fire, he was light, he was descended from sunlight itself. When the first flower on earth blossomed, he had smiled upon it, and guarded it with his presence. He had witnessed the first steps of man and monster, sang along with the first song, and had personally taken the first life ever lost to war. And he had been there when the fae faded, when the war was lost, and when the last beam of sunlight ever reached into their kind’s prison. He had endured it all, and he would endure, beyond Asgore, beyond any king who followed, beyond the barrier and the earth itself. He would be there for the end. When the sun engulfed and razed the surface, he would be there. When that same bright star erupted and faded, he would continue to burn. And when the final flicker of heat was stripped from the universe itself, the final flame to be extinguished would be his own.   
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, none of that was remotely true in any capacity. 

Grillby was a 32 year old bartender in a backwoods village far west of anything of particularly useful. He hadn’t experienced any of those things, and chances are he never would. But it was fair to say, he believed, that the one thing he of which had seen all there was to see was the art of the drunken boast. He had once been the reigning champ back in his younger years. Grillby was a humble man when sober, which he generally was, but he still hadn’t thought he could be topped in the “fantastical bullshit-spewing” category of drunk, until the day a short, slimy little skeleton named Sans wandered into his establishment. He was, after exactly 3 beers, a time traveller.


	9. Explaining Time - Might Continue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was a fairly old WIP from early summer I think, where Frisk explains the resets to Papyrus but he gets caught up in the details and mechanics at first and fails to understand that Frisk's concern is the emotional and moral implications. I thought it was a neat contrast between Sans being into the science stuff but mostly being concerned with the morality of how you use that power, while Papyrus here was the opposite. 
> 
> I didn't get to that part, obviously, but I still kinda like what I have here.

"SO… YOU CAN… UM… CAN YOU REPEAT THAT ONE PART?"

Frisk frowned just a bit before catching themself and forcing a smile back onto their face. This was not how they expected this conversation to go, though they supposed they shouldn’t have been surprised that Papyrus was confused. They asked him to clarify which part he meant.

“UH. THE PART WITH… YOU SAID… UM. I…” Papyrus looked down at his gloved hands, gesturing with them a bit in a bid to explain, or maybe just to understand. They started shaking for a moment. He tightened his fits into a ball and stopped. With a sigh, he explained, “I MUST ADMIT, HUMAN, I’M… HAVING A DIFFICULT TIME FOLLOWING. UH… SURPRISING AS THAT MAY SEEM, GIVEN THAT I AM VERY GREAT AND SMART.”

Frisk nodded, and told him they could discuss the issue at another time. They tried to reassure him that it was okay, and he didn’t have to worry about not understanding. Papyrus’s almost-ever-present grin fell in response.

“NO. NO, I… I NEED TO UNDERSTAND, RIGHT? YOU SAID THIS WAS IMPORTANT. AND IT SOUNDS VERY, VERY IMPORTANT! AND EVEN IF IT WAS COMPLETELY POINTLESS, IT WOULD STILL BE IMPORTANT BECAUSE YOU CLEARLY ARE VERY WORRIED ABOUT THIS. I WILL UNDERSTAND! I MUST!”

The child fidgeted. They hadn’t even gotten to the truly important part, the part they worried about sharing, speaking aloud. 

It hadn’t gone this way with the others they’d told thus far. Toriel had nodded along with the explanation, embraced them when they were done, and then… that was it. No questions, no lectures, no problems. Toriel made it clear that they were forgiven for the things that hadn’t technically happened, accepted for who they were, what they’d done, everything, really. It had been perfect, exactly what they’d hoped to hear, needed to hear, feared they would never hear.

Sans, on the other hand… he hadn’t really wanted to talk about it. He made it as clear as he always had that he knew what was going on, and he wasn’t really interested in discussing it. At least not yet. He told them if they wanted to talk, they could talk to everyone else, first, then come see him. It was fair.

_“you gonna tell pap next?”_ They’d nodded. He’d muttered something too quiet for them to hear. _“he’ll get it. probably not right away, but he’ll get it… i ain’t gonna ask to be there for that, but uh… if he doesn’t wanna talk about it, do me a favor and drop it, alright? he doesn’t always do well with big important talks like that.”_

They were starting to see what Sans meant. The next attempt at an explanation had gone by even worse, with Papyrus’s expression becoming more confused and his questions becoming more and more messy and unfocused.


	10. HALVED - Old WIP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is an older WIP that I still like but I'm not sure it stands on its own and I'm not sure the direction to take it so for now, it's going here in the reject pile. I may rescue it back out later, though, because I really do like it.

Sans doesn't remember much before a certain point, and for a while that point tapers into fuzz and static and a vast amount of uncertainty. It starts to clear around the time “Papyrus” and “Sans” were first uttered. 

He knows it was a joke, a suggestion he didn't expect to catch on. He knows he was the one to suggest it. There's some context he's forgetting, though he gets the joke at its most basic level, and that's generally how he likes his jokes these days, so it works out. 

Truthfully, Sans is all about the basics. The easy stuff. The simple stuff. So while he often looks back and wonders, he can look at his life in its current state and find some measure of contentment in it. 

But he wonders about the point before. He remembers so little and knows so much, disjointed and without context. 

There's quite a bit he misses, even now that he's accepted his new life. 

He misses science. He misses the days when so much knowledge was in his head and at his fingertips and he wants to go back to that old job and that old life. But he doesn't have that kind of knowledge anymore. It's all dried up and locked up somewhere else. 

Sure, he gets the jist of things. He can remember enough to draw from, maybe enough to explain it to some people at the bar, maybe. But that's about it. It's the surface level stuff. He loves it, he cares about it, but he doesn't really get it anymore. 

It's just gone, and like everything, he tried hard to get it back. Unlike everything else, he hasn't given up on it, yet. 

He just had to relearn. It's harder than the first time, it's harder than anything ever has been, in some ways, but his passion hasn't died yet. Not quite. 

In that one way, he can see Papyrus in himself. They're opposites in so many ways, but never without the overlap. 

 

Papyrus doesn't particularly wonder about before. He knows he wasn't always Papyrus, and he knows there wasn't always a Sans, but those days feel so strange to think about, so he doesn't. He doesn't see a reason to miss them, at least not really. Because he likes Papyrus, and he likes Sans, and he doesn't see much that rivals those two things. 

He does know he used to be much more…   _ respected, _ though. He’d had a wonderful job, and people took to him readily. He's not sure why he had to lose all that social grace and confidence but he'd do quite a bit to get it back and be as liked as he had been… but he wouldn't give up being himself, or give up Sans being himself. And he thinks maybe  _ that _ would be the price. 

It's a price too high, and not at all worthy of consideration. 

Papyrus knows he doesn't come across as smart. He is, though. He knows he is. He's a genius. Always has been. But it's just… not very  _ interesting _ to him. He'll use it for puzzles, because he loves puzzles, (Always has!) but anything more advanced just feels like he's being kicked in the skull. It's not difficult! Not really! It's just… an incredible lack of enthusiasm, which is a very odd feeling for him otherwise. He's usually very enthusiastic! Always has been! 

And ambitious. Papyrus has always been very, very ambitious. Just… not about the sciencey things, right now. Sans loves the sciencey thing but Papyrus just can't focus on it. 

He tried. He did. He tried very, very hard at first. Back before they got the new house he and Sans had spent every waking second on that machine, and neither of them slept, so that was quite a bit of time. 

And God, the arguments. So many arguments.

Because Papyrus  _ hated _ the machine, hated the whole thing, and all he wanted to do was literally anything else. Everything else! He was cranky and miserable and bored and his mind and magic were constantly on edge and all he wanted to do was scream and stomp and shout. He was always just a second away from storming out, leaving the other to rot while he did  _ something else.  _

_ Anything _ else. 

Because Sans was so passionate about this single thing, and nothing else, but he didn't know what he was doing, constantly fumbling and dropping equipment. He'd been a mess, not understanding enough to do things alone, but wanting to because Papyrus clearly didn't give a damn about any of it. 

 

Of course, at the time, they weren't Sans and Papyrus. They were, but they weren't. They were just… them. Themselves but not. But also not whatever there were before. They were just two people who could not be more alike and could not be more opposite.

They weren't brothers, then. 

 

But they became brothers, and they were brothers now, and everything before that point was odd and uncomfortable, like a memory of watching a bad TV show, the sort of thing that was always in before Mettaton was on the scene. It didn't feel like them. It was fuzzy and scripted and stilted and strange. 

Papyrus associates the memories with the feeling of boredom and disinterest, the urge to get up, leave, do something else, think something else, be active, be ready, be anything but that old version of them. 

It's not that it's  _ hard _ to focus on it. If he must, he can, he  _ can  _ remember it's just…  _ uncomfortable. _ It's a couch that's too short and too broken to relax into. It's a screen with low contrast and an awkward hue that makes everyone look just slightly off. It's tinny speakers without any bass, equalization all wrong. It's grease-soaked burgers, gone stale and soggy, that refuse a balance between slimy and dry and decide to be both, sticking in his inner jaw. 

It's nothing he enjoys. It's everything he cannot stand. 

It's worse because he knows it happened. 

He likes now. He didn't like then. It's easier to pretend it never happened, and while he usually doesn't take the easy route, Sans has rubbed off on him, there. It’s easiest to live in the now, so he does.

 

Sans avoids bringing up the subject. He can't tell if Papyrus remembers or if he's moved on, but either way it feels better not to talk about it. It feels right to pretend and ignore it. So he does. So they do. 

He signs himself up for as many jobs as he can. It's not because he wanted to work. Nah, that's all Papyrus. Sans didn't get the work ethic. In some ways, that's the clear evidence: Papyrus is focused on a single goal at any time, and everything works to support it. Sans works 7 jobs, not all of them legal, and doesn't care much for any of them. 

They're mainly an excuse to snoop into other people's business, if he's being honest. Being everywhere he can be lets him see what's going on. He's got an eye socket open everywhere he can. Its weird, kind of, when he thinks of it. He doesn't do anything with the information, he just likes to have it. And is not really borne of paranoia or vigilance, he just feels more comfortable knowing, because he's supposed to know. So he does whatever he can to be sure he can know. It's just natural. It's just right. 

(The money from all the jobs doesn't hurt, though.)

They work things out as best they can, and really, it's impossible for either to see themselves as anything other than brothers. It doesn't matter what they were. It only matters what they are.

They're _more_ than they were before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's more, but I'm going to post it on its own since it's a different sort of style and I'm not sure I like it, and presumably there would be a lot between this and that. So that's the next chapter.


	11. HALVED - WIP (2nd Part)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This follows the same story/setup as HALVED but it's more of a flashback and sort of redundant. I don't like this as much as the first part so if I do pick HALVED back up, it likely won't include this part.

Eventually one of them had thrown something. Whether it was thrown at the other, neither could say, nor could they really recall which has been doing the throwing and which had been the target. It had been a blur of synchronized rage months in the making. The lack of sleep, the hostility, the disorientation where the edges fuzzed.

Whatever happened, the machine took the blow and that was it. Too much damage and it was clear that their partnership was done. The machine was finished and neither would be what they were before again.

Silence and avoidance followed, both sinking deep into a depression neither had seen before. They suffered differently. They coped differently. Because they were different people with different minds and different plans and different thoughts… and they weren't so used to being so different.

But they _were_ different.

 

After that, the one that would eventually be “Papyrus” stormed off and the one that would become “Sans” started in the apartment and stewed and neither of them contacted the other for weeks.

Those weeks had been disorienting.

Papyrus doesn't remember any of that stretch of time. He doesn't remember where he was or where he stayed. He thinks, and this is only speculation, that he may have just wandered. Never stopping. He was always very active. He thinks maybe he spent time in Hotland, adrift and confused, tied but unaware of it. He wasn't used to not having goals, to not having dreams, and he didn't have them during that time. He had nothing. No passions, no plans. No Papyrus, really. Just a restless monster with a fractured soul and no direction in mind.

He knows whatever happened, he had lost himself entirely for a while. He knows he doesn't like Hotland. He thinks maybe it's a reminder.

 

Sans does remember what he did during that time. The answer is pretty obvious, anyway. He did nothing. He didn’t go anywhere. He didn't do anything. Sometimes he watched TV, which sounded fine in theory, but he hated every show and every channel and that made it pretty miserable to bother with.

He remembers wondering, briefly, if that was how the other one felt about the science stuff, all the ability, none of the enthusiasm. And he didn't know whether or not guilt was an appropriate response to that thought.

 

They meet back up again, obviously. Papyrus remembers trudging up to the door, tired and just… tired. Tired. Very, very tired. He wasn't sleepy though, he never is, he never was. He was just tired, and a nap would not have helped. Sans remembers seeing the other again and feeling a very odd sense of empathy. It wasn't odd for him to feel empathy for others… Just _that_ other. Because that one was different. Until suddenly that one wasn't.

Papyrus remembers seeing the other again and realizing he missed him, that he cared about his well-being… but not really in the way he had been. Something had shifted during those weeks apart, and there stood two monsters, not brothers yet but not what they were, either.

Sans remembers the other asking if he hated him. And he didn't, though he somewhat hated himself for making the other ask the question, because that wasn't the sort of person he always was, was it? And that just lead to another wave of confusion.

 

Finally instead of talking to themselves, the two had heart-to-hearts. Conversions and concessions, agreements and frustrations. They found common ground, no longer seeing themselves as polar (and soular) opposites but instead as two different people with a similar background. They played games, they hung out, they debated, they talked, and eventually, they were brothers, and eventually they realized it.

And in the end, it was a much better feeling, being two people who were there for each other.

Brothers.


	12. SURVIVE - Darkfic I  Don't Like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This is some dark shit. Dark enough that I didn't end up posting it for Halloween because A: It's pretty dark and B: It shared a lot of themes with something I did intend to post (and then didn't!) and it felt like a lot of dehumanization/identity loss stuff to have laying around. I REALLY don't like this (also because of the writing) but I also like it enough that I want to post it in case someone really wants to feel bad.
> 
> This contains dehumanizations, unethical experiments, medical fuckery, humans being awful, some unpleasant descriptions of things, loss of identity, altered mental states, stockholm syndrome, Just A Lot Of Terrible Things Happening To The Great And Terrible Papyrus
> 
> Oh btw its Underfell

The second war with the humans had ended rather quickly. 

No matter how powerful monsters had become in their isolation, no matter how violent, no matter how much they craved the blood of humanity… monsters were still too weak and too few. Monsters had magic, but humans had weapons. Not knives or sticks or swords but guns and bullets and missiles and bombs, and most of all, worst of all, they had souls, human souls, free of corruption, free of hopelessness and a monster's natural desperation. 

Humans were incredibly powerful. 

Monsters could not complete. They never really could. 

It was a tough lesson to have to learn twice.    
  


Papyrus had not planned to be taken alive. Not really. Undyne had always preached the sort of death and glory talk that saw most of their comrades killed early on. Undyne herself had not fallen easily, taking as much of the glory as she could before the death. The humans had tried so many times.

He'd really thought she was unkillable. 

But he'd once thought things could get better, too, hadn't he?

No, he didn't want to be taken alive. He wanted to be like Undyne. He'd always wanted to be like Undyne. 

But deeper in his heart, further back, a younger Papyrus hadn't wanted to be like Undyne. He'd wanted to be like Sans. His brother. The one who told him to survive, survive, survive. Always, always survive. No matter what the cost, no matter how much it hurts, you need to survive. You need to fight, but you need to live. You can fix what breaks, you can make your apologies, you can live whatever life you want, but only if you survive. 

_ survive, papyrus. promise me you'll do whatever it takes to survive.  _

So he did. 

 

He abandoned his plans to turn to dust when the humans came for the survivors. They'd found him. 

_ Only _ him. 

 

He remembered how one of them laughed. A damned skeleton was the only thing still alive.

Papyrus thought he knew every skeleton joke there was, but he didn't understand why that one was supposed to be funny.

 

* * *

 

There probably weren't a lot of monsters left. 

He hadn't really been sure of that. Monsters were good at hiding, much better than they were at fighting, but whatever the case was, monster kind was either gone or in hiding and he was one of the few left in human hands. 

 

Humans hadn't even remembered monsters existed, and the study of their remains was so difficult. Humans didn't understand monsters. Humans didn't understand magic. Humans didn't understand dust. 

Humans didn't understand a lot of things. 

But they wanted to. Humans were very curious creatures. 

So they studied what they had available: The survivors. (The prisoners.)

That was where Papyrus came in. 

Sans's voice repeated through his mind.  _ Survive. Just survive.  _

Undyne, disappointed, whispered:  _ Don't let them take you alive.  _

 

He didn't know who to listen to, so he followed big brother, as he always had. Even if he'd stopped showing it a long time ago. 

 

* * *

 

It was easier to retreat into his memories when the experiments started. They reminded him of things he and Sans had survived before, and it made him think that maybe this time, too, he could survive. 

But they'd survived together, and now Papyrus was alone.

He wasn't sure what happened to Sans. He knew he might be alive, though the start of the Second War had engulfed many of the relevant memories that might give him some sort of clue. Rage and chaos and energy had filled the early days, fogging up his mind and his memories. He'd been so ready to take back the surface. High on hope and LOVE. He thought he and Sans had a fight, mainly because they often did, and he hoped that was the case, because it would mean Sans had run off to hide away and to sulk, and he was never safer than when he ran off and left Papyrus to his own devices. 

At least, he'd always  _ believed _ that Sans was safer far away from him. Sans was good at blending in and hiding away. He did much better without Papyrus giving away his position, never quite quiet enough, never much for stealth. Sans was probably fine. Maybe even better than he had ever been without his little brother to drag him down. 

It may have sounded like a hopeless thought, but it wasn't. 

It was the only hope he had left. 

More and more he thought about the past.

Sometimes he thought of Undyne. He wondered how disappointed she would be, when she came to rescue him and saw how he gave up and let himself be taken. Undyne wouldn't let herself be taken.

No, Undyne hadn't let herself be taken. She was killed. She wouldn't come to rescue him. 

The only human soul taken was taken by her. The humans took it back, and even then, she fought on, changed, warped, a thing that was no longer Undyne but a creature like her, with a greater ferocity, a thing that should have not been possible, not been natural, but was. She was. 

She'd killed so many, but in the end she fell apart. 

Melted. On him, actually. 

He wasn't sure whether his memories were accurate anymore. There were inconsistencies he noticed, any he'd given up trying to reconcile them. What mattered was they were a comfort, an escape. They kept him sane. They kept him alive. 

He would survive.

He had to survive.

It didn't matter what he remembered, really, as long as he remembered that one, vital rule: Survive, survive, survive.

(And then Undyne would come to rescue him!)

And so he did. Even as everything began to go hazy. Even as it became harder to remember, and harder to retreat.

 

He was never good at hiding, really. 

 

* * *

 

Of the memories that remained sharp, he remembered his first kill the clearest.  He'd been shaking and sobbing, cut deeper than he ever had been before, right across the face. Sans tended to him, but he wasn't much of a healer. He couldn't fix the cut. It would scar. He couldn't fix the LOVE. No one could. 

But he told him it was okay, that he did what he had to, that he wasn't bad. He was good. He had survived. And that was what mattered. 

Papyrus had always worn his scar with pride from then on. It was a sign that he had won a seemingly impossible battle. 

It was a sign he had survived. 

It didn't even matter that parts of him had been broken that no one would ever be able to fix, because he had gained something from it, and no one could take it away. 

But humans were very clever. And very, very smart. They learned so much, mainly from him. And there were things that couldn't be fixed, but they fixed them all the same, and things that could never be taken, but they'd found a way. 

 

The humans fixed the scars on his skull just to see if they could, and the monster had never felt quite so broken. 

But he survived… 

 

* * *

 

Time passed. He didn't know how much time, really. He had no way to measure it, and he'd given up trying. 

He'd given up… a lot of things. 

 

* * *

 

It was hard to get used to seeing your own soul outside of your body, but the monster got used to it all the same. 

It had never been possible for monsters to remove another's soul from their bodies. Not really. It was all a confusing, complicated mess of intent and substitutions, representations and summoned constructs but an actual soul being removed from a monster's physical form was impossible. 

At least, it had been for monsters. And there had been no real cause. No real need. Too much power exerted for such little gain. 

But humans wanted to understand, so they figured it out. The human scientists were very, very smart.

It had taken a lot of tries to get it right! That's what they told him, but by the time the humans tried it on him, they'd perfected the process. 

The humans liked him. Apparently humans had skeletons inside them, or things that they called skeletons, that looked like him, and that meant that he looked like a human to them, at least kind of. And they liked that. They thought it was charming. Something like that. No one had ever accused him of being charming before!

It was weird. 

So a lot of the more dangerous experiments they did on other monsters first. By the time they got to him, they were safer and better. And that was… That was good, he guessed. It meant he could survive. 

He had to survive. 

(This was surviving, right?)

(He… He was doing good, right?)

(The scientists told him he was. He had to survive, so he believed them.)

 

They always asked him all sorts of things. 

How he felt, usually, or about his various emotions, cameras pointed at his face, and those were very hard questions to answer because… he'd never really been very in touch with his emotions. Or… well, he had, actually, hadn't he? But then he stopped. They asked a lot of questions about that. About LOVE and EXP, too. 

They never seemed to like his answers at first, but eventually they seemed to accept it. Or maybe he got better at answering?

They asked him about monsters in general. Habits, habitats, society. Those were easier to answer, even if he wasn't always sure of what he said. He never went to Hotland much, for example, and that was something they were very interested in. If there was still a war to fight, it would have been worth knowing that monsters could withstand greater heat than human beings. As it stood, he had no use for that information, so it fluttered right past him as things they said often did, now. 

He just answered what he knew. He didn't focus on knowing more. 

They thanked him for those answers. Smiled. Nodded along. A scientist once patted him on the head for a good answer, and he'd leaned into the touch, eyes closed. Through the gloves he could almost imagine it was Sans, patting his little brother on the head, back when they were both young and small and relatively innocent. 

And maybe he smiled. Maybe his eyelights glowed a little brighter, a little pinker, at the nice memory, at the imagined reunion. 

Whatever he did, the scientists thought it was “cute.”

No one had ever called him cute before. 

Then they left, and he was alone again, in a room cold and gray, physicality held together with artificial magics, soul weakly linked, locked away in a device he knew now he couldn't break. They kept it there because it made him less aggressive. He stopped biting people after they sealed his soul away. After the first time, he stopped clawing and tearing and screaming. 

(Mostly, he’d just stopped.)

Undyne's whispered accusations echoing through his skull did little to ease his mind.  Sans's promise did little to relieve the loneliness. 

But the scientists cooing, praising him. Calling him charming. Calling him cute. Pets on the head. Smiles of approval–approval he'd never gotten before, not from anyone, not for a long, long time. 

 

 

…He wished they would come back.

 

* * *

 

 

After most of the experiments had ended, things changed. The skeleton just did what the humans asked. He was literally eating out of the palms of their hands. Sometimes they brought others to visit him, smaller humans, like the one from before  _ (...before?). _ They gawked and stared in awe and he preened and presented himself, his skeleton muscles, or the small, harmless bone constructs he was still able to summon, now with great effort. Without his natural soul inside of him, he couldn't do much else, but the humans liked a show and the skeleton liked what the humans liked, so he tried his hardest to impress them. 

Once, a smaller, gangly-looking human, frail and determined, with fewer little fingers than he knew humans were meant to have, found their way to him, past the plexiglass, into the display, and there were screams outside but he was caught instead by their grasp. A hug. A child had given him a hug, and for a moment something surged inside him,  _ through _ him and through the tenuous tether between who he was and who he had been, and he held the child tightly before the scientists made him let them go. He didn't want to let them go. They told him their name in a whisper, and he swore to himself that he would remember it, their secret pact…

But then they were gone. The feeling was gone. The memory almost immediately went fuzzy at the edges, just like all the others, and the name was lost.

 

Just like his own. 

(The first thing the humans had taken, even before his soul, even before his scar, was his name, and once he himself forgot it… well. He wondered if they understood what they did when they did it, but humans were smart, smarter than him, so of course. Of course they knew.)

 

The exhibits were fine, though that incident aside, nothing ever changed. 

Humans gazed at his soul on display. It was bright and pretty they said! Some small humans thought he was scary, but others thought he was cool! He smiled placidly back at them. 

 

He was happy. Really, he was. 

What else would he be?

 

Maybe some part of him wasn't, or thought he shouldn't be. Maybe something inside of him, or behind the glass case, locked away, bright and glowing, barely still tethered to him, screamed that this was wrong, that this was worse, that this wasn't surviving, that this wasn't what he wanted. 

He could barely hear it.

 

It got quieter every day. 

 

Eventually it stopped yelling, and he felt a weird sort of tugging, a dull sort of pain. He didn't complain (the humans didn't like him to complain!) but they noticed, and like the good friends they were, they rushed in. They did something to the collar, the one keeping him alive without his pretty soul, and it made him very sleepy as they tried to figure out what was wrong. 

He saw the soul himself, finally, and knew the answer immediately! But he didn't tell them, because he didn't want to speak out of turn, and maybe he was wrong, and they were much smarter than he was, so they would figure out what it really was. 

It was pointless to tell them. 

 

(He wasn't smart like them. He was just there to stand there and look cute. And he was good at it! He couldn't win the war, he couldn't save his friends, he couldn't say goodbye to his captain, or follow in her footsteps, he couldn't escape, he couldn't find his brother, he couldn't die like a proper soldier, he couldn't even remember his own name… but he could survive and he could make the humans like him and that's what he was good for. Just that. He'd failed at everything else.)

The monster fell asleep and didn't wake up until the humans discovered the answer.

(It was probably very quickly, because they were very good at this.)

 

Anyway, his soul was dying. He was right! 

 

He  _ thought _ he'd fallen down! It was hard to tell at first, because the artificial magic had already been what was keeping him alive, his soul having taken that captain monster's side of the argument a long time ago. Thankfully, he was protected from his soul’s intentions by the nice plexiglass display case that separated it from him. Locked away so he couldn't hurt himself. 

Humans were so smart. 

He was so lucky his friends saved him.

 

The scientists seemed sad when they broke the news to him. They were different ones than the ones who had first studied him, younger (and admittedly much nicer) but only because the others were older now. It had been quite a while, and humans aged so quickly! Some of these new ones used to be so little when they would visit his exhibit! It was nice to see them grow up and become so smart!

He was proud of them!

 

(He would have told them that, but he stopped talking without prompting a long time ago. He was happy being quiet. He used to be too loud, and the scientists never liked it when he yelled at them, cursed at them. He couldn't blame them. How rude!)

They explained to him very slowly, using small words and euphemisms. They weren't sure he understood. He was pretty dumb, after all, and they didn't know any other monsters. He was special. He was the one that survived. (He was very good at surviving!) They probably weren't sure how much he understood. Maybe because of how little he spoke, or the way he only ever agreed with his keepers and whatever they said. But he knew what dying was. He'd even killed before! And he'd known! (And he'd hated it). But humans didn't like to hear that. It made them sad. He didn't like making his friends sad, so he didn't explain. 

He just smiled and nodded and a few of them were sad, anyway. 

“We can keep you alive, possibly,” one offered. Again they explained, softly, slowly. It was true; the artificial human magic could keep him alive. But there were a lot of things in his soul that he would lose when it died. And he had already lost quite a bit when they locked it away. It was unclear what would be left, if anything, if they did that.

But he lost most of it a long time ago, and he remembered someone telling him he needed to survive. 

He didn't remember who it was, but he didn't want to let them down! He must have cared very much about their opinions, if he remembered them even now!

“Okay.” 

He smiled the same smile as always. Some of them seemed happy. A few of them still seemed sad. He didn't remember how to sign the papers they needed (apparently there were laws about this now? Apparently he had choices now?), so he agreed on video, recited the words the leader human had told him, and the humans got to work, saving him. 

(Destroying him.)

 

* * *

 

The skeleton’s soul that had once been on display was replaced by a replica. It didn't look quite right, but humans weren't great at magic, and his keepers weren't great at crafts. They also had neat diagrams to show the way his collar kept him alive even without it. They called it a magical-medical miracle. 

He didn't have an opinion on that.

 

…Or much of anything, now. 

But he survived. 

 

There were more scientists, and more keepers. And more and more and sometimes they would tell him that one had “passed” and he would nod and smile because it was important to show the human friends how grateful he was that they spoke to him and told him things. It would be rude to ask who they were talking about. 

He wasn't good with names. 

 

The monster did whatever he was told. He didn't sleep much before, but the humans decided when he slept now, so he slept for 6 hours every day after “closing.” He didn't need to eat, but every day at ten o clock they had him eat a biscuit and a milkshake (they discovered he used to like them. He guessed he still did.) to show how his mouth and digestion worked. He was too humanlike to go without clothing, so they always picked out something different. He used to pick, or comment on the choices, mumbling if he was complaining, but he didn't do that anymore. He wore what he was given. 

He never thought to complain. 

Sometimes they would joke about how much more docile he got after his “surgery” (as if he wasn't already before it), but he didn't think they understood monster souls, even now. 

He laughed along, polite and empty, and didn't have any real thoughts on the matter. 

He barely had thoughts at all. 

His memory was all but gone. His mind was sluggish and disconnected. He wasn't really alive anymore, after his soul shattered. Not really. Not technically. He was just artificial magic, trace physical matter, and the tiniest bit of essence.

 

But he existed. He survived. 

That was the important part. 

That was the one thing that mattered to him.

 

Survive. Always, always survive.    
  


* * *

 

 

One night, some humans showed up in his exhibit during “closing” and he smiled at them as expected. They didn't look like scientists or keepers, but he didn't really understand human dress codes and uniforms and roles, and it wasn't his place to question. One of them was a small human, another was a larger human. He guessed that the big one was old.  There were others, but they stayed back, in the shadows, and he couldn't get a good look at them. Any curiosity he had left was consumed by the main two, each seeming to be missing important human bits and parts.

How strange. 

The big one was missing fingers, and something in his mind thought that seemed significant. Gears started turning that hadn't seen use in a long, long time, clunky and rusted and slow but still thoughts, still ideas, still questions, even if he returned no answers or solutions. The smaller seemed to have all their digits and limbs. It was their skin that was in short supply. No muscles either. He'd never seen a human without all their meat on, before. They looked funny. They were smiling but they looked scared too. He knew he was scary to some humans. It didn't bother him. The keepers told him some humans likes getting scared, so it wasn't his place to try to take that away from them. 

 

He gave a vacant smile and waited for them to tell him what they needed. He would do whatever they wanted, as expected. 

  
  
  
  


 

…But they wanted him to leave?

“No, thank you,” he said immediately, polite, with an appeasing smile. 

 

The fear on the little one only worsened. The frown on the big one only deepened. 

They tried to argue with him. They called it a rescue. He didn't understand, but then again, he wasn't very smart. He almost agreed, because they were humans and humans knew best and who was he to argue?

(He wasn't anybody.)

But he stopped in his tracks as the small one tried to pull him away, causing them to trip. It was so rude but… but… 

“I can't leave.”

He would have to be firm. He hadn't even known until this moment he could still make decisions, but this was important! This was deeper than him. 

The small one argued more. The larger one looked sad, but stayed quiet, but the little one had a lot to say, and they were furious, and they were confused, and they were just so scared in a way the skeleton monster hadn't seen since the day his soul had dimmed.

 

They were scared  _ for _ him. 

He didn't understand. 

 

“i don't get it…” the small one said after their long speech had failed to move him, voice thick and gravelly and deeper than it should have been for a small human. 

“I can't leave,” the monster offered again, hoping this would be more clear. He didn't want to cause humans distress! He wanted humans to like him. Even now, the thought of upsetting one seemed contrary to his nature. It didn't upset him; he felt nothing, really, but it was important he appease them all the same. 

The small one took him by the arms, shaking him, starting up at him, searching his face like they expected to find something there. It was a little sad. He knew they wouldn't. There was nothing left to find! He wasn't anything that this small human wanted or needed. He wasn't anything at all. 

 

They stopped. They were crying. Sometimes small humans did that, but this seemed different. Significant. Something the monster couldn't understand anymore. Maybe he never would have. Or maybe he should have even now. He didn't know. 

The larger one seemed to want to leave. The smaller stood firm, hands still holding his. 

“w-why won't you leave?” 

 

A good question! He'd never had the option. He'd never been explicitly told he couldn't. Really, the humans never  _ said _ it was forbidden. This was his own decision. 

 

“I'll die.”

 

He was proud of himself for figuring it out. He hadn't had a puzzle to solve in a long, long, long time. (He used to love puzzles.) He displayed the collar to the humans, to demonstrate what he meant. It was the only thing keeping him alive. It would probably stop working if he got too far away. That's just how it worked, he was sure. 

“possibly? but isn't it worth a shot? you’d be free!” This small, meatless human was so insistent, so… concerned? But the monster couldn't go with them. 

 

“I have to survive.”

“but  _ papyrus _ this ain't–”

 

The monster ignored the name, didn't recognize it as his own, simply asserted himself uncharacteristically, not with force,  but with repetition, voice airy and quiet and devoid of any real emotion. “I promised I would survive. I have to survive. I have to survive.”

The mantra was always playing inside of his head though he'd grown deaf to the sound of it over time. Now it began to spill from his jaws, over and over and over again. It was from before. He wasn't really sure what "before” was, but it was from before. 

The small human pulled him down to eye level as he repeated himself, and he let them. They weren't taking him away. There were just bringing him down. He continued to babble. It seemed like once he started talking, there was simply no reason to stop. And he had to make sure they understood. The small one put their hands on his shoulders. Small hands, skeletal fingers. They looked just like his! 

 

Maybe it meant something. 

He didn't really understand what. 

 

The small human was still looking up at him. They were so tiny. He was happy the big human was protecting them. It was a hard world out there. (He wasn't sure why he thought so. His life was very easy.)

 

They were talking to him, and he tried to listen but like a lot of things it just… didn't work very well anymore. But still, he survived. 

He noticed their hands were reaching for his neck. Slowly, trembling, delicate. He was almost scared. He needed to survive. But their voice sounded soothing, even if the words didn't quite make sense. There were sorries in there, so many sorries. They called him names that no longer had meanings, cooed reassurances he couldn't understand. Declared things he lacked the capacity to return. Even though he wanted to. Even though he wasn't sure who this human was, he… missed them?

 

But they weren't a handler, a keeper, a scientist, and he didn't know anyone else. And he never missed  _ them _ when they left. Never. 

He didn't know why this human was important, but he knew they were. 

Small, boney digits worked quickly and skillfully at the monster's collar, and he allowed them, docile as ever. 

They were crying. 

 

…Oh. He was too. 

 

Because the collar was off, now, and he was already falling apart. He couldn't feel his toes. It was a good thing he was already kneeling. He might have fallen over. 

He looked down at the crying human with the skeletal hands and tried to explain to them why this was bad, why they had to put it back on, why they had to help him, let him live.

 

“He's going to be so disappointed in me if I don't survive.”

 

The little one was shaking now and making terrible noises that brought with them the flickers of what would have been memories.

It felt right to hold them tight, to comfort them, but he still needed to explain, he needed then to put him back together. So he could keep surviving. 

 

He needed to keep surviving. 

“I promised I would survive…”

He didn't remember who the promise was to. 

 

“it's okay, bro. you did good. you did so good. y-you don't have to keep it anymore. y-youre free.”

 

Oh. That was a relief.

He couldn't think of what to say, so he did what he always did and smiled. 

 

“i… im sorry i couldn't… that i couldn't…”

He never got to hear the rest. But he understood. 

 

He lingered as long as he was able. He felt safe being held by those small, skeletal hands, petting his head, holding him close, and he felt something close to pride, knowing that when this was over, the owner of those hands would survive. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey this was sad i hate it


	13. Fellswap Drabble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a snippet of Fellswap I wrote and forgot about. We'll call it a drabble.

Papyrus used to be friends with the Royal Scientist, Undyne. They weren’t friends anymore by the time he lost his tooth, but she offered the discount anyway. Papyrus was smarter and harder by the time he lost his tooth, but he liked to trust old friends, anyway.

Both wound up regretting it.

 

Papyrus wasn’t violent. At least, he generally tried not to be. It was hard, living in their world. It was hard to be and remain the person you wanted to be.

 

She made a mistake. 

~~ (So did he.) ~~

 

Undyne lost an eye that day and Papyrus lost himself.


	14. Mettaton Dating Game (Unfinished Draft)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had an idea for a fic where Alphys tries to hook Mettaton up with someone but I didn't have enough of an idea to get more of this done. Someone write it for me, please.

Mettaton had entered the dating game. 

 

Mettaton was not fully aware of this fact yet. 

Ghosts did not date. It wasn't a hard and fast rule, and in fact most ghosts were noted romantics of the purest caliber. The problem was ghosts were also formless, and ageless, and sometimes they weren't quite all there in the grandest sense. Ghosts were complicated, and generally not seen as viable romantic options. 

Mettaton had tried to change that. Of course he had. No one really questioned why he was always trying to rebrand ghost-hood as less spooky and more sexy. It was a Mettaton thing, one of hundreds of Mettaton things. Still, he'd never really seen it as an option for himself before he became corporeal, and after he'd been too busy to notice that things had changed. 

Alphys, on the other hand, had noticed. Dating Undyne had turned her into a self-appointed dating expert, as well as giving her a surge of confidence she had yet to find a real cause for… until now. High on self-esteem and vague notions of vengeance for a game show question gone rogue, Alphys had decided to find Mettaton a date. 

So far, it had been a disaster. 

Alphys knew him, but she didn't know Mettaton’s type, so she cast a wide net and found fourteen eligible individuals who she believed would smooch a ghost. Robot. Ghost robot. 


	15. UF Flowey Ficlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be something bigger but I wasn't all that into it. So here's some Underfell Flowey angst for you.

After leaving the Castle, the first thing that Flowey had gotten used to was dying. 

It was… it was weird. It wasn’t like the first time. There was less pain, less haziness, less trauma overall. It was quick and sharp and rarely with much suffering, and he wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or disappointed that he couldn’t even die like a real boy. He was glad it wasn’t a reminder of before, though. He couldn’t handle remembering in detail each and every time, because there were a lot of times.

Flowey didn’t know how to fight. 

As Asriel,  _ they  _ had tried to teach him a few times. They’d put him through “intensive training” so he could be tough and strong if he ever met another human. He was just a kid, though, and he’d had only a sliver of a boss monster’s strength and stamina, and technically, it wasn’t even his own. He’d been too young for it to be his own. He was only borrowing it, drawing it from his parents, sloppily and greedily, but never drawing much. He was also not skilled enough to wield what power they had into any concrete forms, even fire being too difficult to master, too controlled and too chaotic all at the same time. He couldn’t make bullets, he couldn’t make fire, and the result was some unformed, unaimed mixture of the two that set a very non-magical fire to the drapes and banned them both from playing that game again.

And then they had, anyway, only in the courtyards, or in tunnels and passageways after dark, when they weren’t allowed out. He was never certain if their insistence was because they so deeply valued his capacity for self-defense, or because they so deeply valued breaking even the most important of rules and dragging him along with them. Mom and Dad always seemed to know when the two of them did it,something he hadn’t understood until now. He’d never been able to feel the tether. It was only because he was so young and so used to it. He’d never been without it. 

It was unmistakeable now in its absence.

Now, he didn’t have magic at all, not his parents’, not his own. He could do something, but what it was was not magic. It was something else. It felt a little bit like them, but it wasn’t. Whatever it was, it was stronger than monster magic, harsher and weaker than human magic, and the best thing he could call it was “Flowey.” Not Asriel. It was distinctly new, and distinctly his. He wanted to hate it, but sometimes he had to fight, and being able to hit harder than anyone else thought possible was something that thrilled him, though maybe it shouldn't have.

He didn’t want to be like the rest of the Underground.

 

He just wanted everything to go back to the way it was meant to be.


	16. It's Not Like Flowey Is Lonely Or Anything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was a draft of a part of a crossover I kinda gave up on. (Echo meets Flowey)
> 
> In this case, it's just some fairly stand-alone Flowey stuff that ends on a cliffhanger.

Flowey knew he probably shouldn’t have done the thing, but he did the thing. Boredom, you know? It wasn’t like anyone was using the CORE these days. It’d been a few years since the kid left… everybody else left too. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t read every manual, heard every lecture, from Mettaton, from Alphys, from Papyrus and even from Sans on a few rare occasions. The workers at the CORE, the retired members of the previous science team, all weird folks. 

He knew how the CORE worked. Mostly. Kind of.

Sorta?

And yeah, sure, it was reckless. He could have gotten himself killed. He could have blown up the whole dang mountain. Yeah, it was dumb and stupid and he shouldn’t have done it. But he’d never done it before and it was the only potentially-fun thing left for him that didn’t necessitate leaving the underground, and he wasn’t doing that.

No one’d been in the mountain for months anyway, besides maybe that stupid ghost, and they wouldn’t get hurt. Flowey wasn’t sure they could get hurt. (Technically, he’d never done  _ that  _ either… but he also didn’t want to try. Not because he felt guilty about the possibility or anything. Hurting people was just so… _boring._ He was _done_ with it. It wasn’t _creative._ )

 

Anyway, he couldn’t leave the Underground, and he was bored, so he did the thing.

_ (He could have left, but he didn’t. He tried once and it was too much. He only got 5 feet out the door.) _

_ (It’d been months since anyone visited.) _

 

It wasn’t that he was lonely.

_ (Frisk was a teenager now. They were the most popular kid in school.) _

 

He was just utterly bored.

_ (Papyrus was in college. He was going places.) _

 

He didn’t need to talk.

_ (Alphys and Undyne were in Japan now.) _

  
  
Not to anyone!

_ (Mom or Dad visited sometimes, but not him. They visited the mountain. They visited them. They didn’t visit Flowey. Never Flowey.) _ __   
  


He didn’t need anyone!

_ (He would have refused the greeting had they tried.) _

 

He just needed ~~someone...~~

_ (Sans sometimes stopped by to chat. The conversations were vague and pointless and really nice when they stopped being infuriating) _

 

...Some _**THING...** _

_ (Mettaton showed up once, and only once, to visit the old house. He signed a petal when they met. Flowey didn’t wash it off.) _

 

...He just needed something to take his mind off of how BORED he was!

_ (Napstablook wandered in sometimes, and never spoke to him. They both knew why.) _

  
  


So yeah. He did the thing, and everything changed.

~~ (At least he wouldn’t be bored again for a while.) ~~


	17. Echo and the Imposter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another draft of the same idea as the previous chapter, Echo meeting Flowey. In this case, Echo ended up in UT and not Flowey ending up in Echo's universe.
> 
> You can find info on my Great Echo AU here: 
> 
>  
> 
> But essentially, Papyrus died and ended up inside of an Echo flower. Echo has some issues.   
> (Flowey doesn't show up in this draft)
> 
> There's one more version of this same idea I think. At least one. That'll probably be next.

Echo felt his very core freeze up when he realized that something had happened. He wasn't sure what, at least… he wasn't sure  _ why _ . He simply knew that it had happened and… And he didn't know anything more. But something happened. Something had to happen, right? Something happened, right? 

Something happened. Something happened. Something happened. He didn't know what happened or why it happened but something happened. Something happened. Something happened. Something… something had to have happened. Something… right? Right. Right? Right. 

R… r… 

S...some...r...h...ppppppppppp…..

…

S-S _ -S-STOP!!!! _

 

The flower took a deep shuddering breath, trying to fight past his own panic. The breath was unnecessary, even before, even now, but he still hadn't figured out a good way to ground himself, no matter how much he was literally physically rooted to the ground itself. 

Something happened. That was what he knew, and that was what he believed. There were no other options, because he was real. He was… Himself. He was  _ Papyrus _ and he was real. Not… not Echo. No. He was Echo. But… Echo was Papyrus and Papyrus was Echo and Echo was the real Papyrus and Papyrus was… was… him. Yes. He was himself and himself was… was…

 

He was looping again. Mantras had once been very useful tools for overcoming mental blockages! Of which he had very few, of course! But it had become a blockage in and of itself now. This form was, at times, more echo flower than it was Papyrus, and that certainly didn't help him at all! 

And at the moment, it was downright maddening. Because something had happened. And if it hadn't, (but it had. It had to have because had it not had then… then he had had a… no. No, Ech--Papyrus, focus. Focus. Papyrus. Focus. Focus. And… Stop repeating yourself!!) that meant… He wasn't… He didn't… Who? What? Was he just…?

Stop. 

Breathe. 

Think. 

Right….

Echo had seen something that should not have been possible. It was… It was bothering him. It weighed on him, his mind and his ssss… ssenses. 

He'd seen himself. Papyrus. But not himself, Papyrus. The real Papyrus. But… he was the real Papyrus, so the… the other Papyrus, he had to be a fake. Yes. An impostor! Here to trick people, to take his place! And he was succeeding… But only because everyone missed the real Papyrus so much. Of course! Because…. Because they were so sad, that… in their grief they forgot that he… that he… he d- he died. That was it. They just forgot he died, due to missing him so very much. And so they replaced him, not knowing it was a replacement, not knowing it was a fake, because they missed him so much, they would fall for anything! 

It was all a lie. It was all a trick. Because he was the real Papyrus and… and he wouldn't let people be tricked!!! He had to rescue them from this fake Papyrus! 

 

Yes, that made sense. They were simply confused! Not him! He wasn’t the confused one! They were confused and it was up to him to help them!

By eliminating that other Papyrus.

 

Yes, that’s what he had to do. For them. So they could all go back to missing him, properly.


	18. Echo Anxious - Old Draft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yet another false start to that Flowey-meets-Echo WIP
> 
> There's one more after this.

Echo didn't want to think about it. So, he didn't. 

It was disturbingly easy to ignore his problems in this form. He'd always been good at it, but burying his feelings had always been much harder than buying his thoughts. But now… 

Oh! There it was again! Hello, anxiety! It was nice to have it back, somehow! A relief! More real! He liked real! He didn't like panic attacks so much, though, so he suppressed it yet again, and yet again it came easily. And… he ducked underground, trying to find somewhere else to be, somewhere else to go, to avoid locking himself in a loop. This form could do that, sometimes. There were moments he was more echo flower than person and… well, maybe some days that was easier but today it would only be a source of current and future suffering. It would strike too close to home. The Stars above knew he didn't need another sources of fuel for all his insecurities. 

On his first blind try, he found himself in Snowdin, but there was no place he wanted to be less (besides in this body), so he tunneled yet again, and this time found himself somewhere unfamiliar. 


	19. Echo 3 - Old WIP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I might still use this version if I ever pick this back up.
> 
> YET ANOTHER Echo-Meets-Flowey draft. This is the actual last one.

Echo tunneled down into the earth to stop himself from being locked in a loop of panic and denial. Sometimes his thoughts could get a bit repetitive, and that very fact would only make his problems today all the worse. 

He'd seen something he hadn't wanted to ever see, and it would not process, and he could not dismiss it, and so it lingered. And so it looped. Until all his thoughts were nothing but the same incoherent words and patterns on repeat. He had to break the pattern. It would not do. Not today. 

And so he tunneled! He was very inexperienced with this aspect of planthood. It was so dirty! So unclean! It wasn't as if he could take a shower after. At least, not without tunneling into a waterfall. But then he would have to tunnel back out, dirty clinging to water, turning him filthy and muddy and uncivilized and gross. That ruined the whole purpose! He didn't like tunneling, but he didn't like staying in Waterfall after what he had seen.  _ Who _ he had seen? No. No,  _ what _ he had seen. That thing was a what. That thing was a  _ thing _ . It wasn't a person. It couldn't be a person. Because he was a person. Echo was a person. Echo… echo… NO. Papyrus was a person. And he was Papyrus! The great Papyrus. THE Great Papyrus. The great… the only…. 

No loops. Stop. Stop. 

So thinking about it. Okay. 

Thing was thing, he was Papyrus. Yes. Yes that was right. No other explanation could be allowed to stand. 

The thing sparring with Undyne. Undyne was his friend. He didn't talk to her anymore. He tried not to see her. He didn't want to see her. He didn't want to talk to her. But she was his friend. His. Not the thing’s. No. The thing was pretending. The thing was a liar. A trickster. The thing was bad. And… did he want to kill it?

…

Hm. Echo wasn't a killer. Never. He would never kill. But the thing wasn't a person. The thing was a thing. Could it even be killed? No. No, it wouldn't count! After all, it couldn't be Papyrus, because he was Papyrus. So it was a lie. It was a trick. 

It was a thing.

So, sure. That made sense to him. He could “kill” it without breaking character. No. Without…without breaking  _ his code _ . His moral code. Codes he believed in. Highly. Carried… carried in his soul. Integrity. Love. Hope. Mercy. Yes. Yes, all things he definitely still had. In his soul, which he still had. And even if he didn't, it was simply misplaced. Yes. It wasn't killing. He wasn't breaking the rules–his rules. His rules. His.  He wasn't breaking them. He wasn't. He hadn't– and he wouldn't. 

He would break  _ IT. _ The thing. 

He would break the thing. Destroy the thing. Protect. Yes. That was him! Err, the person protecting was him. He was a protector. A hero. Echo. Papyrus. The flower was him, the flower was the hero. The other thing wasn't him. It wasn't him. It wasn't him and it would never be him. It was just a trick. It was… it was… it… It…

SNAP OUT OF IT. 

 

Okay he was fine but maybe… maybe he wouldn't try to kill the imposter right now. Maybe… He would have to wait. Because he was all worked up right now and that would do no one any good! What if he made a mistake in his panic and couldn't kill the thing? Papyrus wasn't a killer… but that thing wasn't Papyrus. He was Papyrus. The thing would see that if he wasn't taken by surprise. He wouldn't…  _ It _ would realize its con had been found out, and it would try to cover it up. And Echo wasn't very good at fighting like this, and the thing would win. And then Echo would die all over again, and his friends and family would never know! They would be forever tricked and deceived by the trickster thing, and they would never know about Echo! And maybe he didn't feel quite as… Strongly about Undyne or Sans anymore. He still wanted them to love him. The real him. He didn't want them to forget him and move on to a new Papyrus. Even if the new Papyrus was good, or real. He couldn't be, because Echo… Echo was real, wasn't he?

…

He didn't know. That's what scared him. 

He needed to think. He needed to stop thinking. 

He needed to go away for a while. 

 

Echo had never visited Home before. It was very close to not-capital home for him, but there wasn't much to do there. Monsters came and went, but it wasn't a very popular city to live in or visit after the founding of New Home. He'd seen the gates many times, even guarded them on occasion, but never had he had much temptation to cross over the threshold. Being in Home was a new experience that didn't threaten unpleasant memories or reminders of things he couldn't immediately fix or change. 

Home was much emptier than he'd expected it to be. Buildings were treated with little care. Most stone facades had seen damage, most of which was probably the result of time. What kinds of monsters were these! Not doing upkeep for so long! How lazy were these monsters!? Lazy and unfriendly! He saw only smaller monsters, Fribbits and Flutterbugs and Gospigs and Vegamels and other types he rarely ever saw. As he wandered the city, he found no shops, no signs of permanent residence. The CORE’s power seemed to be cut off here. It was very dark! It was strange that the residents had not complained!


	20. TKBTM Sans POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just wrote this for my own sake. It's a Sans POV of some of the events of the "original" timeline in TKBTM.
> 
> This wasn't going to be posted or continued but why not?

Sans had never expected his baby brother to become King. If you’d told him that when they were kids, little Sans would have laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And kept laughing. He hadn’t always been quite so supportive. As an adult, he still wouldn’t have believed it. After all, the Dreemurr dynasty was millenia old. Everyone loved the King, and without a natural born heir, he would never age. His replacement would never become mandatory due to the natural passage of time. There would be no coups, no rebellions, not under a king who had ruled a long enough time to become universally adored. Human invasion was incredibly unlikely. If it hadn’t happened yet, it probably wouldn’t happen at all. He could technically step down, but nah, Asgore was in for life, the poor bastard, and life for him was unending.

 

And even if a freak accident happened, chunk of ceiling coming down on his head, drinking the wrong tea, falling down, whatever, the next in line of succession was never going to be Papyrus. There was simply no way Sans could have seen that working.

 

* * *

 

....

 

* * *

 

 

After that night, whatever opening Sans had pried into existence was gone.

 

Papyrus wouldn't talk to him. Not really. He acted like everything was fine. He denied there was anything wrong. He smiled, constantly. It was unnerving. It was so forced, so empty, like the inside of Papyrus's soul had already collapsed into dust and the hard outer shell of his physical form simply hadn't caught up yet. Conversations went nowhere. Papyrus rarely made any sense. 

The day to day was fine, really. Papyrus performed his duty like a marionette on a string, repeating lines he must have memorized, working on a schedule that must have been seared into his very soul. As long as he could be on autopilot it seemed he was able to lead like that. But the Kingdom hadn't settled into the easy routines of Asgore's reign yet, and though most crisises were calming down, there were still surprises and so many things left to do. 

Papyrus could no longer do them. 

He would stare when something strange happened, or ignore it. Sometimes he made these grand, inexplicable decrees which Sans would later quietly rescind. The first seven and a half months of his reign had not been perfect, but Papyrus had been so good, and he had helped so much. But maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was the isolation from everything he used to do and be, or maybe it was the weight of the very mountain on his shoulders. Whatever it was, Papyrus was losing himself and Sans was at a loss for what to do. 

So he didn't do anything. He couldn't. He just watched as his little brother fell apart and started waiting for the end. 

He called the kid a dozen times. He may have tried to beg. The calls probably never went through. His dignity was glad but the rest of him was furious that he even considered his own pride. 

 

When Papyrus collapsed, Sans had been hopeful. Papyrus was sleep deprived, so maybe sleeping would help, right? It wasn't like Papyrus never used to fall asleep at weird times. Maybe he could sleep it off. Maybe that was all they needed. 

When the healer said his brother had fallen down, Sans didn't believe them. He tried to talk his brother into waking up. He shook him. He cried. He yelled, and Sans never yelled. 

Nothing worked. Papyrus was gone.  

 

It was just a matter of waiting for the end, and preparing for the after. 

Sans was going to be king. He preferred death. Death was easier, and easy was his thing.

 

He wanted to stay by Papyrus's side, or help prepare the kingdom for another new dynasty, but he was selfish and hopeful, and so instead, he went and found the machine.

 

* * *

 

 

It was busted, mostly, but it could still give printouts and readings, half-baked calculations that Sans could not know were still accurate or true. Timelines stopping and starting on the screen, maybe the result of the kid hopping to and fro through reality, maybe the result of the machine having suffered a serious blow Sans lacked the engineering knowledge to repair. 

It didn't matter, really. He just needed to know. He needed to pretend for a bit that there was a way out of this, that Papyrus would be alive and happy again, that they would both have a second chance at a better future then this one. 

He expected the readings to say the readers were over, or would have to wait thirty years, seventy, two hundred. That wasn't it. Something was off, a flux, an error, and a reset was coming.

 

Very.

 

Very.

 

Soon. 

 

When Sans left the basement, he found seven missed calls, all from the nurses and monitors bank at the castle. Papyrus was dying. 

Sans didn't make it in time to be there whenever he dusted. 

But time itself didn't make it there, either.

 

* * *

  
  


Sans woke up in his bed in Snowdin, feeling an anxiety both familiar in its purpose and foreign in its intensity. His head was fill of visions of purple robes, golden crowns, and a smile so unnatural it made him want to cry. 

He cursed and went back to sleep, unsure if he wanted to retrieve more memories or erase the ones he awoke with entirely. 


	21. Prison AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> InvalidOp's Prison AU. I forget what I was going to do with this so I'll just put it here.
> 
> Background info: this AU involves a guy named Aster. He's in prison. It's an AU.
> 
> Now you're all set!

Aster heard a few times from various acquaintances that cellmates were some of the most reliable contacts a guy could have. They said there was just sorting about sharing a cramped cage with someone for a couple months that really formed a solid bond. 

Thus far, he was pretty sure they were all full of shit. 

The “doc” in the bed above his never spoke to him. He just stared and picked at his bones. One time he grunted in his general direction within a half hour oh Aster asking him a question. That has felt really significant. If they both remained here another year or two, the other might even say hi. 

Wouldn't that be something?

Aster imagined the two of them together as old men, ancient, yellowed bones thinned down to brittle fragility, finally introducing themselves to each other.


	22. Bad Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First draft opener of a continuation of this from Papyrus's POV:  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/11477940
> 
> I like it but I decided to do a continuation differently (and more angsty...)

Papyrus believed he was doing quite well, all things considered! But it wasn't really well enough, and so Papyrus forced an extra strong, extra brave, extra cheerful facade in front of Sans, and in front of Undyne, and really everyone, though he doubted most other citizens of Snowdin truly appreciated his performance and effort. 

Sans had certainly not been himself since the incident in the living room two weeks earlier. Papyrus understood. After all, the memories it had dredged up in Sans had also been brought to the surface of his own thoughts, though the memories were still a little fuzzy. There was a lot missing. It was rather scary to think about, so for a while, Papyrus tried not to, while encouraging Sans to do the opposite. “LET'S FACE THIS HEAD ON!” was roughly the line he'd used. And he was! He was following his own advice! He was tackling the problem of the transformation. He was going to master it! He  _ was _ facing it head on!

But… then there was the issue of the memories, and the doctor, and what had happened to them, and the  _ lack _ of memories, and the fact that he now had this awful secret, and… And what if people hated him for being… a different sort of monster? Would he ever be liked if people knew he was like this? Would everyone just think he was a freak? According to some, he was already a freak! Double freak!? And did… did he even  _ count _ as a monster, given the circumstances of his creation? He was  _ created _ . And  _ why was that? _ For what purpose? To be a weapon, or to amuse the doctor? Or what? Some other reason? Some other purpose? And what if it was a  _ good _ purpose, and they… uh… no…No, he wouldn't think about that. And…  And did he even qualify for the Royal Guard? What would Undyne think!? Would she think his new powers very cool, or would she think less of him for it? He knew she had  _ opinions _ about humans, and he wasn't a human, at least, but he was different, and he wondered if her opinions on humans would bleed over into other things that were different. Would she still be his friend? And Sans, god, sans didn't look at him the same way anymore and it was so aggravating and it made him feel so nervous! And this was all in addition to the fact that he now had this  _ condition _ he couldn't control. And a lack of control made him very, very nervous! On top of all the other things which also made him very very nervous!! And he hated being nervous almost as much as he hated being powerless and in the midst of chaos. He liked things neat and orderly and under his control! Everything put away in tidy boxes, prim and polished! And  _ that _ , that was something he remembered about the doctor, too, and… 

and… 

Papyrus may have believed in facing his problems head on, but he had far more problems than he had heads. 

And so the other problems would just have to be forgotten until that one was under control. But it was very difficult, pretending he wasn't worried, or anxious, or afraid. He needed to be strong! And he thought he was rather strong! The couch, may it rest in pieces, could testify to that! But it was still all wrong, and it was still hard. 

It was all so much. 

 

* * *

 

He'd had a bad day. 

Usually he would claim that no day could be truly bad because… well, he couldn't really think of the usual stock phrases at the moment, but usually it did sort of help, looking at the bright side, even if the bright side was something silly. But after the weeks he'd been having, he much preferred the idea of taking a day to wallow in it, to accept that, yes, he was miserable and sad and tired, and no, he didn't want to smile and put on a brave face. 

Undyne and him had had a fight. It had probably been brewing for a while. Normally, he would have noticed it and prepared himself. He was usually very attune to when his friend's mood was changing, but he has been caught off guard today. Too many thoughts. Too many worries. Too tired to pay attention, which was exactly what the fight was about. He'd been slipping up in practice. His magic felt weird. There was nothing wrong with it, just recent events making him look his own magic in a new context, and it made him sloppy, and clumsy. Not weak, per say, though he'd definitely been holding back quite a lot. 

  
  



	23. Quick Quickie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was just a sentence by itself in a file. I don't know what this was but I like it so why not throw it in the trash?

Sans prided himself on being quick. Quick-witted, quick-moving, quick with a joke, but rarely quick-tempered and never quick to trust. 


	24. I Tried To Write Sanscest Once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a time I opened ficlet requests on Tumblr and I forgot to say"no selfcest" on the rules, and my first request for exactly that... so I figured I could TRY.
> 
> The idea here was that UF Sans and US Sans were trapped in some kind of dead timeline as the only two populating it after an incident left them both stranded there. It was going to focus on them bonding.

“the toaster's broke.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THE TOASTER BROKE!?”

 

You shrugged. Wasn't your fault! Probably.

… okay, maybe it was. A little.

 

“NOW HOW ARE WE GOING TO MAKE TOAST!?”

You snorted, and then you laughed in earnest, because it was just the silliest damn thing, honestly. You laughed and laughed and you thought you might even be crying, but that was impossible and couldn't be allowed, so you buried your face in your sleeve and kept laughing, muffling out the sound and soaking any errant wetness (never tears) into your sleeves. 

Toast. Seriously, that's what this guy comes up with!? Toast?

His biggest concern is toast. 

You really had to wonder what kind of universe this guy came from, that churned out a thing like him in your place. 

 

* * *

 

You were Sans. 

You weren't from around here, originally. 

Your own underground was a shithole. Occasionally some human books or tapes would trickle down into the underground, painting vivid pictures of what the humans believed and expected if the world, and every depiction of “Hell” looked just like home to you.  Deep in the earth, hot and dark and full of spikes, anarchy reigned in by tyranny as monsters destroyed each other, even the purest of souls falling to corruption. Love was forbidden. All anyone was allowed to know was LOVE.

It was a cruel, hopeless world. 

You missed it. All your stuff was there. 

 

The other guy was also Sans. Just a different Sans, from a different place. He was you, at least sort of. The similarities were harder to list than the differences, though maybe the ways you were unique were what you felt you needed to see. Finding common ground was admitting a lot of things your ego wasn't ready for. 

You got the sense he felt the same, always putting on an extra large smile every time you felt like being an asshole. Didn't matter if he was as miserable as you moments before. Didn't matter if the smile didn't fit. You were a dick so he was a saint. You were a mess so he was a maid. You cursed and he pulled out a jar and demanded a quarter, even though you knew damn well he frequently swore under his breath. Usually at you. 

(He was loud and apparently that was the one thing he wasn't forcing, or at least wasn't forcing as much. You were quiet. Mumbly. You were never self conscious about that before.)

The softie spoke fondly of his home, his world, but it sounded weird and you tried not to be interested in any of it. Chances were you would never get see it, just as he would never see where you came from. His underground didn't sound like the hellscape you were familiar with, lacking the darkness of home or all the warmth beneath the surface, the embers in the ash. No Mettaton, though they still had a robot. Their king ditched instead of their queen way back in the day. You tried to ask about the lady at the door without being too obvious about your secret friendship, and he had no clue what you were saying. You weren’t sure whether you were glad or not. It was nice to have people he didn’t. You had connections and secrets that were yours alone. It made you feel just a little proud of yourself. Just a bit.

 

* * *

 

 

“What’s grillz like in your world? He made of snow or somethin?”

“WHO?”

“grillby. runs a bar down the road?”

“NOT IN MY WORLD. WE HAVE MUFFET’S! IT’S A CUTE LITTLE BAKERY WITH A CAFE ON THE SIDE!”

“ya poor bastard. that where you spend your time? at a bakery ordering tea and crumpets?” 

_ (“WEAK.” you could hear your brother say in your mind, and you were inclined to agree with him.) _

“I DON’T REALLY GO THERE OFTEN. I’M NOT A FAN OF SWEETS.”

“heh, never woulda guessed that from you.”

“IT’S MORE OF PAPYRUS’S PLACE, ANYWAY.”

“wait, wait, wait:  _ papyrus _ is the one frequenting the cafe for tea and crumpets in your world?  _ papyrus!? _ ha! i take back anything i’ve said about not wanting to see your world. i’d  _ pay _ to see  _ that.” _

“HEH HEH! MAYBE ALL YOUR WORLD NEEDS IS OVERPRICED BAKED GOODS AND STALE COFFEE.”

“pssh! i can see it now, riots disperse and the dust finally settles for 500g snickerdoodles!”

“HEY, YOU NEVER KNOW UNTIL YOU TRY!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There would have been a plot of them working on the toaster together and bonding over it but I just... none of this was my thing and other prompts happened. The dialogue is fine I guess.


	25. Glamour ending to Wasting Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The original way Wasting Time ( http://archiveofourown.org/works/12920121 ) was going to go before I decided I didn't like it like this.

There was something about the show, but also about the robot himself. 

There had been rumors on Undernet, conspiracy theories, actually, that there was something about the broadcast. Brainwashing. Mind control. Something insidious and dangerous these changed the monsters who watched the show too often. (Why he was doing it, his end goal, his plans… no one could agree for sure. No one really understood the robot start who had appeared out of nowhere. It couldn't mean anything good.)

He'd… believed the theories, actually. Just a bit. 

Magic was powerful, and everything was magic. If a monster could manipulate their own magic into attacks, it seemed within the realm of possibility that a monster could alter another's magic, their mind, into something more agreeable. It would be more difficult. But many things were difficult. Difficult was not impossible. 

Peace might be impossible. Kindness might be impossible. But not abuses of power. Certainly not. 

So yes, he'd believed it.

But when the Undernet died, along with his appetite, along with his ambitions of repairing old machines, when his LV trickled up, up, up and took the fun away from puzzles, when he ran out of books to read and fantasies to remember in his darker moments… when he ran out of other ways to distract himself from what he was becoming, and what he was expected to be… 

He didn't know if the show was changing him, but he  _ enjoyed _ the show, and he envied the robot with the silver tongue, and where once he'd watched with a critical (metaphorical) eye turned inward as the other pointed out, now he watched with an open mind. 

The rumors were right. He didn't feel any different. Not at all. 

Even as his LV ticked up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actual Glamour Mettaton is a favorite headcanon.


	26. Reader X Idea Idea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have this Reader X parody/ multiverse shenanigans idea I kinda like, and this is all based on that. My Blue has shifted a bit since this so it's unlikely I keep this

Back when Blue had beta-read Alphys's fanfiction, the idea of meeting his alternate selves had been an amazing concept. He'd been captivated, fascinated, by the possibilities. What would another him be like? Would they connect over shared opinions? What kinds of paths might be have taken? What kinds of changes might there be? Would their lives truly be that different? Could they found common ground?

The idea was exciting! And while Sans had not ultimately pursued science, he knew enough to know that, while theoretical, such scenarios might be possible. 

This was not at all what he had expected to find. There was nothing of himself that he saw in the other Sanses. They were so alike each other but nothing like him, and it... _bothered_ him. They were so lazy, and so miserable! One never laughed at anything, the other laughed at things that weren't funny, and neither of them laughed at his jokes. They were sloppy and messy and gross, and he didn't understand why. They had some of his brother's mannerisms, so he couldn't condemn that, but those didn't belong on their frames, on their faces. 

It was all wrong. 

From what he'd gathered (trying not to put, but finding it a difficult task at odds with his constant curiosity), there hasn't done much, or accomplished much, and in some ways, that felt pretty great. Sans felt like he was the superior Sans, and that felt like a job well done. It was like he'd picked all the right roads, all the best opportunities! He was proud of himself and yet… it made him uncomfortable. 

He didn't understand how they could be so different, but still be  _ him.  _

He was unsure if he wanted to know. 


	27. Town Drunk - Old WIP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on this sad AU that hurts me a lot:   
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/12467040

Undyne was determined. She was fierce, and focused, tough and strong, brave and kind, but above all else, she was determined. If something needed to be done, she would it.  When she made up her mind on something, it was very hard to change it. There were few forces in the Underground that could challenge her, but Undyne was always seeking a challenge. That had been the driving force behind the decision to take on Papyrus as her protégé. 

She was an unstoppable force, and he was her unmovable object, and she would be damned if she was going to give up on getting that damn drunk to bend.

Papyrus's reputation had preceded him. While the actual number wasn't many, half the reports the canine unit sent her way were off incidents starring the Snowdin town drunk. It was all minor stuff, mostly. One time Doggo’d had to walk the skeleton home from the bar after he went on a real bender. Another time Dogamy and Dogaressa found him lying face down in the snow in the middle of the woods. Lesser Dog and Greater Dog spent an entire day looking for a leg he lost, once. How he managed to get so far from it, no one could explain. Both legs and all the rest of the infamous drunk went missing another time, only to turn up all the way in some broom closet in Hotland muttering something about cracking a code. Stories like that, and a name like that, on a monster so rare there were only two of them in the entire Underground... it all stuck together pretty well in Undyne’s consciousness. 

So yes, Undyne had an idea of what she was getting herself into when a lanky skeleton, reeking of booze, started banging on her door at 1am. When he told her he wanted to join the Royal Guard, she laughed at him. It was his reaction to that which gave her some pause, and, quite frankly, made her a little uncomfortable: a big, empty smile, the smile of someone who was used to only ever being laughed at. It was like he expected it; it was like he had already made peace with it. 

Like he knew that exact reaction was coming.

It made sense for a small town drunk, probably but… it bothered her, even as she slammed the door in his face and went to bed. Despite the trouble she had returning to sleep, she had nearly forgotten all about him until she opened her door the next morning and nearly hit him with it. He was sobering up, clearly edging into a hangover, but there he was: still asking to join the Royal Guard. 

“This some kind of a drunken dare you had to win?” This time when he smiled, it was a little more thin, a little more forced. 

“NO, MA'AM! I WANT TO JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD!”

“Why?” She blurted out the question without hesitation. She couldn't help it. 

He, on the other hand, did hesitate. 

“...MY BROTHER WANTS ME TO GET A JOB.” He explained. His expression was pained, like there was a lot more to that story. She could imagine. He perked up a bit. “THIS IS THE JOB I WANT!”

Undyne had a feeling that he wasn't going to give her a straight answer if she asked him why he picked this, of all the jobs in the Underground. She had her suspicions, though. “And what happens when if I tell you no?”

He thought about it, making quite the show if the act of thinking, as if the act was hard. Probably the hangover. Or the alcohol still in his system. (Probably both, actually.) At last, he seemed to devise a plan: “I'LL GO GET A DRINK, THEN BREAK THE BAD NEWS TO MY BROTHER!” He seemed proud to have thought of such a great idea. 

Undyne quirked a brow. She was curious. “And what would you do if I said yes?”

Something more alive seemed to flicker to life behind his sockets. He blinked heavily, and just as quickly it was gone. “A DRINK, TO CELEBRATE!!!”

 


	28. Runaway Papyrus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a few variants of this idea before I decided it was boring and dropped it.

Undyne didn't know what happened. 

The best anyone could piece together, the skeleton brothers had had a major falling out. No one was sure what the topic could have ever been, and it was like talking to a brick wall to try to get anything out of Sans. 

Through all the time the brothers were her number one stop after a fire, for all the nights she'd stayed there, for all the time shed known them, Undyne had never seen the brothers fight. She'd never even gotten a whiff of such a thing, and she felt damned protective of Papyrus, so she liked to believe she would have noticed. She would have seen it! But beyond the light-hearted jabs, (“TOO LAZY,” “too fussy,” “NOT FUNNY” “it's inedible”) she'd detected none of it. And there had been no build up. The day before had been fine. The morning jog had been fine. Papyrus was still showing off, smiling and laughing and acting as carefree he'd ever been. 

Then by nightfall, something had happened. Toriel heard a bang. That wasn't unusual, they were not quiet monsters, but it was the only clue of what had happened at all, so it joined the pile of evidence all the same. 

By the next morning, Sans wasn't talking to anyone, and Papyrus had run away. He'd sent out texts and private messages, emails, and a single voicemail on Undyne’s cell, all to the same effect (“DON'T LOOK FOR ME. I'LL BE FINE, BUT I WANT TO BE ALONE. GOODBYE.”) Undine had had no intention of listening. She'd never seen him like this, and it was weird and not very Papyrus, and she needed an explanation. It had been with some convincing, (a lot of convincing,) that she hadn't chased him down right then, when she woke up to all those messages that said nothing, but she, regretfully, didn't. 

Papyrus needed “space.” They both just needed “time.” And okay, yes, Undyne could see that. Undyne could agree to that. But what the hell? Why did Papyrus need space and time from  _ her? _ She hadn't done anything! Alphys tried to explain some possibilities, and none of it made any more sense, but fine. She would listen to the wisdom of her smarter girlfriend. She knew more about this than Undyne did. 

Only, now, it has been three months, and no one had heard from him. There were no more texts, no more voicemails, no more messages, and his absence was felt heavily. 

They'd both had trouble with surface life. It was huge, and there were so many rules, and the tolerance for their brand of monster, the loud and active types who can't help but be seen (often suplexing a boulder or striking a pose and monologue), and there weren't a lot of spaces for either of them, so they'd carved out their own! The system had worked… right up until the system stopped working. 

It wasn't that Undyne felt abandoned. It wasn't that Undyne felt lost without her best friend around… but she missed him, and it sucked, and he needed to come back. 


	29. Lying Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't remember this but I think I wrote it on my phone while I was in a hurry because the amount of terrible word substitutions in this was HIGH and its not very readable. I don't feel like cleaning it up more than I already have, though. That kind of defeats the purpose of a dump.

Sans was an excellent liar, in that he could bluff and make anything believable. It was a skill, honed and practiced over weeks, to months, to years, of boredom and of changing himself. How big a lie could he tell, and for how long, and get someone to believe it? 

 

Everyone knew he was often full of shit, of course. When lying is your hobby, its hard not to brag about your victories to the guys at the bar. It was hard not to share and laugh about the bridge he claimed to own in Hotland, and he wished he could brag about the time it got him a house. Unfortunately that one was slightly illegal. He didn't feel bad about it, but interfering with the process of not losing the house wasn't worth the funny story. That one, he kept to himself. 

He also kept the lie about the time he worked with the royal scientist with no credentials. It wasn't out of any preservation, there, though. No one would believe it, and that's the one story he wanted someone to believe. Unfortunately, the doc's records were all unreadable, and he'd had no official documentation for himself. What was left after everything was gibberish over papers and a machine he’d claimed an expertise in, once.  He had no concept of how it actually worked, and never had. 

That story had been funny, back when all he had to do was get the team some coffee and push the big red button. 

The final joke of that chapter of his life was on him, now that he was the only one left. 

Still, the lies hadn't killed them and the lies hadn't saved them, and the experience was one he had no regrets about. 

So Sans never gave up on perfecting his craft.

 

* * *

 

Papyrus was a terrible liar. He never understood it. All lying meant to him was a loss of trust, somewhere, somehow, eventually, and he hated that idea. He liked to be liked and admired, and a lie seemed contrary that. Too many consequences, too many ways of backfiring. 

And truthfully, while all was forgiven (Papyrus was very forgiving), and all was forgotten (but not really, not truly; never really, never truly.), the shadow of doubt and distrust from he and his brother's youth loomed over the idea of it all. He'd always been so uncertain, and while that wasn't all Sans's fault, not at all, it hadn't helped. 

And they grew up. Sans didn't lie as much to him, and in fact, a lot of the time he seemed to be trying to make up for it. Maybe he saw the lack of confidence and saw the old lies about the world and the jokes at Papyrus's expense, back when neither knew better (but Sans should have known a little better), and he put the pieces together. 

Papyrus always was an easy puzzle. (Well, maybe.)

But it was forgiven as it could be, forgotten as could be, and moved passed as it could be, and the only hard feelings left were the ones about lying. So Papyrus tried not to lie.

When he did lie, it wasn't usually very obvious. It wasn't that he couldn't learn how to be as slick and silver tongued as Sans. He could. (He had.) He just hated the idea of being untrustworthy. He wanted to be great and loved and lauded, and sure, Sans was great in his own way, and sure, Sans was lauded, and sure, he was loved. 

But he was only loved because Papyrus forgave him. 

And he didn't have to. 

He absolutely didn't have to. 


	30. Underfell Dialogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> angsty awkward underfell dialogue

“what would you do if I died?”

“I'D SPREAD YOUR DUST ALL OVER YOUR SOCK COLLECTION AND BURN THE WHOLE DAMN THING.”

“i'm serious.”

“WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I'M NOT?”

“papyrus.”

“I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WOULD DO, SANS. IT'S NOT EXACTLY SOMETHING I HAVE A PLAN MADE OUT FOR. I WOULD MOURN YOU AND MOVE ON, I SUPPOSE.”

“you'd mourn?”

“OF COURSE I WOULD.”

“heh.”

“WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?”

“i didn't say anything.”

“YOU DID. I HEARD YOU. IS IT REALLY SO RIDICULOUS A NOTION?”

“well you don't exactly act happy to have me around.”

“I DON'T ACT HAPPY OVER ANYTHING.”

“Used to.”

“I WAS A CHILD.”

“kids ain't always happy.”

“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.”

“i really don't, boss. hell. i’m surprised you're even responding. this is the most we've talked in months, you know?”

“WE TALKED… LAST WEEK? DIDN'T WE?”

“we didn't.”

“HEH.”

“i think i’m missing the joke.”

“I JUST DIDN'T REALIZE WE GOT THIS BAD.”

“yeah.”

“DO YOU WANT US TO FIX IT?”

“doubt we can, boss.”

“YOU'RE PROBABLY RIGHT.”


	31. KPCV - Snippet #1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first longfic I attempted was another King Papyrus fic, but it was mostly worldbuilding without much substance: "KING PAPYRUS'S COOL VACATION!!!" It was going to be about all the various things Papyrus does as King and it's actually much different than TKBTM (by design). 
> 
> These are all pretty old so if I ever do this it'll all be rewritten anyway, I think. I'm posting these out of order and cutting them off if they have actual spoilers, because again, I DO like this idea.

Papyrus braced himself as the elevator descended. This was the first place on his list, but… definitely the last he wanted to visit. Ever. 

The doors opened. The atmosphere was so thick… he hoped against hope that all the dust was from disuse and not… well…

The lights flickered. 

The halls down here were built narrower, low ceilings, coping paint. This place was never meant to be up to code. 

Papyrus felt like he had just stepped into another world. A much, much worse one. Still, the Great King Papyrus knew this was necessary. 

There were noises down here he couldn't quite explain. Clanking pipes and something else. Distant humming. Vibrations. Sounds so silent Papyrus could not tell if he was really hearing them, or if it was just memories in his mind. 

 

Papyrus sensed something behind him. Normally he would turn around, introduce himself to the spooky noises and make a new friends out of it, but this place sent him on edge. He was rarely afraid, not really, but here… who wouldn't be?

Slow footsteps… shuffling… dragging… breathing… 

He could feel himself shivering. His soul felt like ice inside of his chest.  

It stopped just behind him. 

It made a noise. 

Papyrus braced himself for anything, and turned around….


	32. KPCV - Snippet #2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More King Papyrus's Cool Vacation

Sans felt ages older. It wasn’t the work that was getting to him, though. That was actually getting just a little bit better, day after day. No, it was his brother who worried him.

Papyrus seemingly hadn’t changed all that much. He was always smiling, loud as ever. He still wore his battlebody when he wasn’t at court, and occasionally even when he was. He still made spaghetti, and it was still terrible. But… he made other stuff, now, too, and it was actually really… good? Papyrus’s linguini was amazing. Sans knew it was a weird thing to worry about, but it was… odd. Especially with the freshest ingredients the underground had to offer being right there in the castle, Papyrus’s spaghetti tasted exactly the same. Maybe it should have been a comforting thought that his brother hadn’t changed, but it left him with a sickening feeling in his stomach that wasn’t just from the uneven cooking.

“SANS!!!!” Papyrus boomed, announcing his entrance into the house they now shared in New Home. Sans had been working on paperwork in his room, the one that had once belonged to Queen Toriel.

“yeah bro?”


	33. KPCV Snippet #3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More KPCV. I think I had this intro rewritten in another file so don't be surprised if another snippet shows up saying most of the same stuff.

It had been a year since King Papyrus’s coronation. 

In that time, to nearly everyone’s surprise, he had really grown into the title. While the underground was still bleaker than it had been under King Asgore’s reign, things were recovering. Asgore was never a perfect king. He had a kingly presence, but what the people responded to was his kind demeanor, the way he treated each and every citizen as if he were their friend, their father, their mentor, whatever they needed. It was what made his loss so tragic, so hard.

But no monster was better suited to being everyone’s friend than Papyrus. Slowly, he grew into the other parts of the job. 

The old plan to destroy the barrier was on hold, but the king assured everyone that he was working on the problem! He had a new plan! A great plan! A secret plan! No deadline, no details, but the monsters, for the most part, humored the plan. After all, it was better than nothing. 

Life started settling into a new routine. The “Bad Day” wasn’t forgotten, but it stopped being the only thing on anyone’s minds.

Slowly, the Underground gave up giving up.

Things were getting better, and they trusted their new king to see things through.


	34. KPCV Snippet #4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MORE KPCV. MORE.
> 
> For the record, all these scenes were very disconnected and I need to cut even more to avoid spoiling major plans in case I do pick it back up, so it didn't feel right to post them all together.

**** Sans sat in his office, sorting through paperwork. In just 10 days was the start of “King Papyrus’s Fun Vacation Week”, a new holiday meant to celebrate the king’s coronation. It wasn’t Papyrus’s most popular decision. The Bad Day fell at the start of the week, and it’s inclusion in the holiday was somewhat controversial. It was the first decree that Papyrus had made without the full support of the Court, a collection of influential monsters Papyrus had summoned to help him learn to rule. Coronation days were a tradition (Asgore’s was still being recognized) but many in the Court felt including the anniversary of the tragedy might be seen as an insult to the Dreemurr dynasty and be poorly received. Papyrus stood his ground, though he completely failed to explain himself or ease the court’s concerns. He stumbled over his words in the middle of the bickering before finally shouting, a little too loudly, that the matter was closed and he was doing this his way.

Sans winced at the memory. His brother wasn’t a bad king, but he was a terrible politician. Papyrus insisted that if he was going to be a good king he needed to learn, so Sans kept a step back, only stepping in if his brother seemed truly overwhelmed. 

Unfortunately, that seemed to be often. Papyrus would bend quickly under pressure. He wanted so badly to be liked that he would fold on most issues. He was getting better, and the holiday was probably a step in the right direction, as ungraceful as the decision had been, but Sans couldn’t help but wish this was another proposal Papyrus gave up on.

Employment forms detailing vacation time for different sectors and businesses across the kingdom covered Sans’s desk. Really, this sort of thing should have been squared away months ago, but the decree was too new, and Sans had to catch up. “Everyone gets the week off!” was a nice idea, but in practice it just didn't work. Essential personnel in the Guard and at the Core could not be completely dismissed. The problem of whether resorts, inns, restaurants and shops would stay open or not was another headache. 

Unfortunately, that wasn’t his biggest headache he found.

Everything was all outdated. Undyne was still on the Guard payroll, and Sans wasn’t sure what to do about that without coming clean that she wasn’t returning from her vacation. Alphys... missing. Fair assumption that she, too, was gone. Gone… on vacation. She was still being paid. Sans could probably get away with leaving those accounts open for now, for the sake of the lie… but there was a bigger problem. 

A sizable payroll was going to an account with no name. The opening dates were ancient, but the account was active. All other information had been redacted. 

This was the kind of thing that was too important to ignore. Embezzlement. 

They’d been lucky thus far to not find any skeletons in Asgore’s closet, but it was probably only a matter of time before something big came up.

He wished it could have waited, though. It was giving him a hell of a skullache.


	35. KPCV Snippet #5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MORE. I like this snippet.

Papyrus had a quiet phase as a kid. 

Sans was never too sure where it came from, really. Best guess was that it was just the way his teenage years decided to roll in. Some kids rebel _(oh man, you should have seen sans),_ some kids immediately abandon every “childish” thing they once cherished, some try to find romance in every monster to look their way, but Papyrus went quiet. 

He was always loud. Always. Until those few years where he wasn’t. 

For most of his childhood, he thought he was too big for things he was definitely _not_ too big for, always excited to grow up, join the guard, get his own house, clean his own house,  _ pay taxes _ … God, Papyrus was such a weird kid. But when he was about 12 or 13, Papyrus stopped dreaming about the future and how great his grown up life would be. He spoke like he was in a library, or, well, like _someone who wasn’t Papyrus_ in a library. Stuttering, quiet, withdrawn. Some people talk with their hands. Papyrus always talked with his whole body. Except when he went quiet. Then, he just kind of… slouched. Played with his hands. Titled his head. It was all so subdued. It was all so… not Papyrus.

He started sleeping with stuffed animals he’d considered himself too big for for years. It was really weird, at least at the time. When his big brother, equal parts mischievous and misguided, stole said doll for a great prank that turned out to be far less great than planned, Papyrus woke up hours later, screaming. Sans tried to comfort him, gave him back the stuffed bunny, and asked him what was wrong. He mumbled and stammered out an explanation that was too quiet, too jumbled, before finally burying his face into his toy and looking away.

At the time Sans had been so worried about him, even though he never quite figured out what was up. Eventually the phase passed. Papyrus ended up embracing the more kiddish stuff while growing up in other ways. He got loud again, maybe even louder than when he was as a kid. He became animated again, and over the years downright theatrical. His confidence came back, mostly, and the bunny got put away, firmly back on the closet shelf. 

Bright smiles, constant motion, always loud, always chattering. That was Papyrus.

 

In the year since Papyrus’s coronation, things had changed. They were growing distant. Sans was caught up in all the paperwork and details, and Papyrus was busy trying to fill Asgore’s shoes. Not without their struggles, they both did really well, but it left them very little time to talk, and when they did, it was rarely about anything besides the state of the Kingdom or the minutia of governing. Sans knew a lot of that was his own fault. He didn’t want to face his brother and maintain the lie, but he just wanted his brother to be happy.

When he saw the bunny had made a journey from Snowdin to the King’s personal chambers, he knew he failed. 

Papyrus was still booming, still smiling, but his movements were subdued now. 

Sans wasn't sure what to think. Heck, if he wasn't looking, he probably never would have seen any of it. It made him wonder if he was missing something, and that was a surprisingly familiar discomfort.


	36. KPCV Snippet #6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KPCV.  
> Honestly I forgot this snippet entirely and it's too fucking good. I'm gonna reuse most of this.

Papyrus wasn’t much of a sleeper. He hadn’t sleep regularly for an entire night in years until he got to the Capital. Now he did, though. Every night! Sometimes even that didn’t seem like enough. It was infuriating. 

Even when he didn’t have nightmares, which he often did, terrible ones he couldn’t remember upon waking, he would wake up feeling… wrong.

Technically, skeletons didn’t have to sleep. Sometimes it helped. It was a way of recharging your magic and strengthening your soul. It was a way to dream. It was a way to rest. For some monsters, though, it was really better if they avoided it like a bad vice, and Papyrus was one of those monsters. Some just didn’t want to wake up! (Sans a prime example. _ And most of the underground, for roughly the past year…)  _ Others are morning people, revitalized and full of life and color. Papyrus wished he was one of those. He liked to pretend he was, and he liked that people assumed he was. He was glad he always woke up early so he couldn’t disappoint them.

 

Papyrus was the opposite of a morning person.

 

He hated sleep. He hated the ceiling. He hated this room. He hated this house, this castle, this crown, this kingdom, this cave, this mountain, and all of the whole damned thing.  _ What “whole damned thing”? _ It really didn’t matter. After a night of stressful visions he couldn’t remember, Papyrus was pretty sure if an adviser put the CORE self-destruct button in front of him right now, he would blow the whole Underground to bits, himself with it, without a second thought.

He glanced around for something else to hate when he saw the fuzzy bunny laying on his bed. His stony expression fell just a bit, and he allowed the tiniest, wistful smile to replace it. He grabbed the doll, held it in both arms up to his face and choked back a sob.  _ Tempting, but too loud. _ He stayed there for a few minutes. The King of All Monsters, sitting on a bed, crying into a pastel pink toy.  _ What a joke! _

Placing fluffy bunny down back with reverence, Papyrus got up, made his bed and slowly walked over to the mirror.

 

It was time to practice his smiles for the day.

 

There was the Wise Kingly Smile! He was saving that one until he was wise. The Greeting-the-Guards Smile, which wasn’t really much of a smile as much of a stern but positive nod. The Polite Smile, which was the main one he needed to keep up on most days. He mostly just stuck with that one. Then there was the nice smile, which was just a polite smile… but nicer! It was better than a polite smile because it made him look more happy.  That’s the one for visiting citizens, the castle chef, and the nice lady who delivered fresh food to the castle. Sometimes she even got the rare, special edition Genuine Smile!  _ ‘Not… not too often lately…’  _ Papyrus hoped she couldn’t tell the difference so she wouldn’t think he was mad at her. 

Finally, the Sans-smile, which was like the nice smile but… less nice. 

Papyrus frowned. Truth be told, he didn’t like having Sans around the castle anymore. Yes, he loved his brother! Really! But it was harder when he was around. He wasn’t very… gullible. Unfortunately. Papyrus’s frown deepened at the thought. It was a hard job making everyone happy and making sure they didn’t give up. It was getting easier! But he was so, so worried that if he made a mistake it would all come crashing down. What if he wasn’t strong enough today to make a hard decision? What if he forgot to smile and someone else got sad? And what if they gave up because of it? It wasn’t like he was good at any other part of the job. If he just focused he knew he could be a good king. But Sans, he was good at reading him. And it made Papyrus extra nervous, and he was nervous that if he got too nervous, he would make a mistake! That just made him more nervous.

Papyrus gave the Sans-smile another try. He stared at his reflection for a while, thinking about all the terrible things that could happen if he failed. Eyes stayed locked to the mirror. He thought about the mistakes he might make, or the problems the kingdom still faced. He thought about Sans being disappointed in him. He thought about Asgore coming back and seeing what a bad replacement he was. He thought about Undyne deciding he was weak and uncool. He thought about the CORE melting down, or everyone giving up, or another human, another Bad Day…

 

 

The smile never faltered.

There! A perfect Sans-Smile!!

 

Satisfied, smile on his face, King Papyrus was ready to start his day!

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A section I cut from this apparently then rewrote over wherever it would have fit in. I really like it for the dark Papyrus-y humor but posting it alone would be weird without this context:
> 
>  
> 
> _It wasn't that he thought he might not care soon. No! He would never stop caring! Caring was his default state! However, it was true that not caring was getting easier. And Less tiring than can't… and less unpleasant. The temptation to not care, it was getting rather strong and frankly it was making him uncomfortable. He had already spent the last year learning new and terrible things about himself! He did not want to add to the list “what the mirror looks like when there's nothing left to reflect back.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _Though he did admit when he thought of it like that it sounded very mysterious and possibly even cool!_
> 
>  
> 
> _However! He guessed it was probably just the polite smile. (But, like, forever.)_
> 
>  
> 
> _No thanks!_


	37. KPCV Snippet* #7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't anything that would have made the cut. It was a dialogue idea that ended up blossoming into a full "what if"sequence. 
> 
> What If: These brothers actually fkn talked!?  
> Answer: Then I wouldn't have a story.

“‘King papyrus’s fun vacation week?’”

“Y--yes. Is it… do you not like it too?”

“I don’t really… get it… if i’m bein honest bro.”

“OH. WELL… IT’S A VACATION! FOR EVERYONE! ONE WEEK LONG! DECREED BY ME, KING PAPYRUS!!”

“thats not really what i meant. why’s this such a big deal for you? I’m glad you’re standing your ground at court but i guess i just don’t get why this is…?”

“SANS… IT’S BEEN A YEAR. AND THE KING… UNDYNE… METTATON… ALPHYS. THEY AREN’T BACK. I… I HOPE THEY’RE HAVING FUN! I THINK ABOUT THEM A LOT!! SOMETIMES I GET DISTRACTED, THINKING ABOUT WHAT KIND OF A VACATION THEY’RE ON. WHERE THEY ARE… IF I’LL EVER SEE THEM AGAIN… AND I THOUGHT… I WANT TO GO ON VACATION TOO.”

“pap...”

“N-NOT A WHOLE YEAR VACATION! LIKE THEM! NEVER! I WOULDN’T… I WOULD NEVER DECIDE TO LEAVE THAT LONG! IF I WAS… I WOULD… LET YOU KNOW? YES. I WOULD. I WOULD INVITE YOU TO COME TOO!! DON’T WORRY!!! BUT… IT DID MAKE THINK. THINGS ARE GETTING BETTER, BUT…”

“hey, bro, if you need a break, you can have a break. seriously, no one’s stoppin ya.”

“THAT’S NOT TRUE AND WE BOTH KNOW IT. I AM THE KING. BUT… WHAT I WANTED TO SAY WAS, I THINK EVERYONE DESERVES A BREAK TOO! FOR WORKING SO HARD!” 

“that’s a real nice thought… it’s just… uhh… i’m not sure we can do it.”

“WHY NOT???”

“some jobs are too important. it doesn’t work. doctors, farmers, people at the core…”

“THEY ALL DESERVE A BREAK.”

“but they can’t all take a week off.”

“THEN FIND A WAY TO GIVE THEM  _ ENOUGH  _ TIME OFF.”

“okay. enough for what? it’s a real nice idea. like i said. but it just ain’t all that feasible, and i’m not seein’ much of a point besides some kinda nice but unnecessary gesture. why all that week? what do they need ‘enough’ time for? work with me here.”

“THEY NEED ENOUGH TIME TO MOURN.”

 

“...pap?”

“SANS. I DON’T CARE WHAT PEOPLE USE THEIR VACATIONS FOR, BUT I WANT THEM TO HAVE THE TIME IF I’M GOING TO. IT’S NOT FAIR FOR ME TO TAKE A BREAK OTHERWISE. IT’S NOT FAIR. BUT THAT’S WHAT I NEED THE TIME FOR, OKAY? I’M TIRED. I NEED TIME… AND I PUT IT OFF LONG ENOUGH.”

“...i’ll see what i can do.”

“THANK YOU. AFTER THE VACATION… WE’LL WORK ON FILLING THE VACANT POSITIONS. YOU’VE BEEN INTERVIEWING FOR SCIENTISTS ALREADY, RIGHT?”

“you knew about that.”

“I AM THE KING. PEOPLE DO OCCASIONALLY FORGET TO REDIRECT ALL IMPORTANT PAPERWORK TOWARDS YOU.”

“sorry.”

“IT’S FINE. I TRUST YOUR JUDGEMENT MORE THAN MINE FOR THE ROYAL SCIENTIST ANYWAY. I’LL BE PICKING THE NEXT CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD MYSELF.”

“you sure? i can handle that. i don’t mind. i know it’s--”

“TOUGH. YES. BUT I’M STILL GOING TO DO IT.” … “HOW CAN I EXPECT EVERYONE ELSE TO GIVE UP GIVING UP IF I DON’T DO ANYTHING TO GIVE UP AND GIVE UP GIVING UP IN THE FIRST PLACE? IT SIMPLY ISN’T FAIR! IT’S DOWNRIGHT RUDE!”

“heh. you’re the coolest king, dude. sorry… about…” 

“I HAVEN’T FORGIVEN YOU YET. BUT… I WILL. JUST… PLEASE START TREATING ME LIKE I CAN ACTUALLY DO THIS. BECAUSE I CAN.”

“i know you can.”

“THANK YOU.” “...YOU CAN TOO, YOU KNOW. YOU ALREADY ARE.”

“heh... i'll trust your judgement on that one”

"THAT'S ALL I'M ASKING!"


	38. KPCV Snippet #8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A worse version of a snippet I already posted here. A better snippet.

Papyrus awoke with an uncharacteristic groan. Generally, he was a morning person. He rarely slept long, if at all, but when he did he usually awoke refreshed and new and ready for the day! No sunlight reached Snowdin from the surface, yet morning in the underground still reacted in small ways to its appearance: a mist over the snow, giving the entire cavern a look that Papyrus imagined resembled the sky. Each morning at daybreak, power from the Core would surge, and the lights around town would glow brighter. Mornings were wonderful times, even if his brother generally disagreed.

This morning, though, Papyrus really didn’t want to greet the day. Especially not with a smile.

He wasn’t sure why that was. It wasn’t unusual for Papyrus to have the occasional bad mood. No one was happy all the time, not even the Great Papyrus. What was unusual was that he desperately wanted to go back to bed. He just felt so… down, which was very, very unusual. A bad day for Papyrus was usually a day of irritation, and maybe, maybe, indulging himself in a pity party when loneliness started to creep in. That, however, was rare.

No, Papyrus didn’t know why he didn’t feel like himself, but he wasn’t going to dwell. He exhaled quietly-- he refused to let it form a sigh-- and gave himself an extra minute to wake up. He wiggled his phalanges, blinked a few times, and then practiced putting on a smile so his brother wouldn’t pick up on anything. It wasn’t that he was afraid of expressing his feelings. He wore those on his sleeve! But this… well, he didn’t want to show this off. Sans was good at reading him, scarily good. Papyrus knew this, and this morning he… well, he wasn’t in the mood for it. Thinking about being confronted about it was actually making him feel worse. 

Maybe he was sick? The Great Papyrus did not get sick! He was healthy and fit! He had strong bones and excellent hygiene! Still… the Great Papyrus also didn’t get moody. So something was wrong somewhere.

Papyrus closed his eyes, imagined taking a deep breath, put on a bright morning smile and opened the door to face the day.


	39. Asgore & Flowey Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asgore and Flowey thing.  
> I always want to write these two hanging out but I can't nail either's voice and get tired and frustrated and give up >:(

Asgore had only been somewhat surprised when one rainy afternoon, Frisk appeared without warning at his doorstep. He was used to these rare visits. Frisk was not the sort of child to plan and ask permission. They were the type who had ideas and followed through without hesitation or reconsideration. They were just a child, but they often chose to travel alone without warning. Asgore knew there had been quite a few compromises and promises along the way before his ex wife had been happy with the arrangement. He had personally stayed out of the discussion entirely. It was not his place. He enjoyed these times when Frisk deemed him worthy of a visit, and asked for no more and no less. 

But before he could even welcome them and offer to make tea as always, he recognized that Frisk had brought something along. Or… perhaps… someone?

It appeared to be a single golden flower, held within a makeshift flowerpot.

They asked him if he could look after their friend.

The former king bit down on the urge to protest the short notice. His home was open to any monster (or human, or plant) in need. He simply hadn’t expected anyone to appear at his door without warning, and he was uncertain of what accommodations his new guest might need. Still, if Frisk was asking for his aid, he would give it without question. They weren’t the type to ask for favors, and they were never the type to second guess. They made each decision work, and they always followed through. The least Asgore could do was support them.

The little flower had been drooping, wilted, and so quiet that had the child not told him it was a friend, not just a flower, he would not have guessed it. He could not tell if the little one was simply shy, or ill, but regardless, he made it his mission over the next few days to lift the flower up: in health, in spirit, and even in stature. 


	40. My First UT Fic <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MY FIRST UT FIC!!! Unfinished and unpublished ofc.
> 
> I tried to rewrite this as It's Raining Somewhere Else with drabble chapters but I didn't like it there, either. This was the result of binging on Papyrus meta back in October 2016. I''ve come so... not very far!!!

Papyrus found difficulty in interesting places.

He has always been a fan of puzzles, for as long as he could remember, which was pretty far back. The problem was, well, he wasn't very good at solving them. Papyrus didn't like to admit it, and it wasn't something he dwelled on. But it was something he knew. Sans was the smart one. He didn't have to try. He could look at a puzzle and immediately know the solution. For a while, when they were kids, mostly, it upset him. He wanted to be as great at them as Sans was. He wanted to be smart, too. As a kid, he chocked it up to Sans being older. When he mentioned it, that's what people would say. Sans was older, and he would be just as smart once he was Sans's age. 

Well, he held them to their words. 

See, Sans was the smart one, the cool one. He was the one with lots of friends. Papyrus, well, he was the sweet one, the kind one, the innocent one… the naïve one. The slow one. As a kid, that's all he had. Being sweet and kind wasn't really anything to be proud of. That's just who he was. He wanted to be smart and clever and strong. Sweet and kind were who he was, but ambitious and, only occasionally, envious were always there too. Even at a young age. 

Papyrus's earlier memory was his most vivid, even years later. He could hear the rain outside, and feel the contrast between the crackling fireplace and the cold radiating through the windows. The light that filtered through the storm was dull and relaxing. It was the kind of day designed for a nice nap. Sans rose to the occasion, arm hanging off the couch, lightly snoring. Papyrus, boundless well of energy he was, though, was simply brought down to a calm tranquil determination to have fun in spite of the weather. He found an old jigsaw and picked over it for what felt like the entire afternoon. He worked hard, diligently, studying each piece, trying to memorize them. He could still remember a few pieces, years later. He'd never done a puzzle by himself before. It was fun! He felt a tiny thrill each time one piece connected to the other.  Normally, Papyrus gravitated towards ball games and imagination and any excuses he could find to yell and run and climb. Puzzles and board games were boring and quiet, but that day, he fell in love with them. 

Then Sans woke up, and joined in. He didn't even have to try. He just knew the solution, like it was instinct, and in no time at all, Sans had solved Papyrus's puzzle. At a time in his life when he was at his most hyper, his most carefree, Papyrus felt inadequate and envious for the very first time. 

Papyrus asked his brother why he was so much better at the puzzle than him, frowning, and quieter than he had ever been. Sans seemed surprised to see him like that. He smiled reassuringly and explained. “you're only four. you get bigger and bigger every day, but you're still real little. when you're nine, that's when you're big, and that's when you can solve puzzles really easy. you're gonna be just good as me when you're nine! maybe even better!”

Papyrus remembered staring down at the completed puzzle, repeating “nine” to himself, the start of a mantra he would secretly for years to come. 

Papyrus's memory faded there. He couldn't remember what the puzzle looked like anymore. The rest of the room, the view outside, Sans’s young face, they had all been lost with time. But the feeling of a dreary, rainy day… the color of the room… the joy of finding a new hobby, the disappointment… it all stuck in his head really well. He made the memory a part of who he was. 

Some days, when he was bored on duty in Snowden, he would think back to that memory. He'd think about how he tried the puzzle again on his ninth birthday, and realized he still wasn't good at it. He'd wonder whether Sans had thought he couldn't solve a puzzle on his own. He'd wonder what the picture was, since he couldn't remember it anymore. And one day, he wondered about the rain. 


	41. Underfell Gerson?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I do not remember this. I have no idea what this is. Probably an old, old version of Unnamed Underfell Papyrus's fall into LOVE before I changed a lot of my backstory for that universe. 
> 
> I like it though. A lot, actually.

Most monsters that tried to claim a soul would experience a surge of power, but just as quickly they would fall apart, or turn on their own men, or go rigid and still and from there, in the middle of battle, they didn't last. The only monsters that absorbed the souls successfully were the ones with a high kill count.  

Those monsters were stronger and more violent, bit what we didn't realize at the time was that they weren't aggressive because of the human souls, but because they had killed.

That's how we discovered LOVE. At the time, prevailing theory was that it was a way to be strong, and a good thing, and that idea… it stuck. You can see the results of it even today. But there were those of us who didn't buy that. Sure, monsters were gaining strength and fortitude, but they were losing something, too. There were a few studies but they didn't get anywhere besides the fact that the need to become stronger outweighed the risks, whatever they were. 

Anyway. You know the story about how we all lost and ended up here. That story… I'll tell you it some day. But after that part, years and years later, I decided to do a survey of the high LV monsters. 

Most weren't doing great. They were violent. They were angry. Their families were torn apart. Some were dust. A few had lost their sanity. But a few… lost their LV over time. And they were the happiest. The healthiest. 

Each and every last one of them said when asked what they did, that it took months and years and tiny bits of progress. They said it hurt. They said they felt as if something broke them. They were in a while lot of pain, facing emotions that had previously numbed down to nothing. 

So. Kid. I realize you're probably in a while lot of pain right now. Just want you to know, I support you. 


	42. Plague Underfell - Concept Ficlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had a sort of neat idea for an Underfell backstory where the state of the Underground is the result of a plague, and I wanted to get a concept out about it, so I wrote this. I don't like it as an actual STORY but it's words and I want to fill this dump with words so here you go.
> 
> I'm still totally using this idea (and if someone else wants to they can, too!) It's just this little concept ficlet that's trash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOP FORGOT TO POST THIS WITH THE OLD WAVE SO DOING IT NOW

Papyrus hated it when his brother made jokes. Sans knew that, and for a while, that's what made them funny. You know, because his jokes were bad and his bro was a hardass, and so it was funny, setting up that barely restrained rage and the scowling glare, like there was some kinda insult at his own expense, not just a stupid knock knock joke. Sometimes he stomped, threw out a couple threats and some cheap epitaphs.

(Not epithets. Epitaphs. Samples of exactly what he was going to put on Sans's urn before he buried the jar of ash beneath the score where it could never be sprinkled over anything worthwhile, caught forever in eternal agonies, unblessed and unnamed but for whatever insult Papyrus would choose. The front runner seemed to be simply “bad,” hastily scrawled in pink gel ink, without elaboration. “I WILL PUT EFFORT INTO YOUR DEATH WHEN YOU PUT EFFORT INTO YOUR LIFE.”)

Sans never once got Papyrus to laugh at a joke of his. Not even a smile. But he counted as victory the smirk that would grow on his brother's face as Papyrus recounted to join exactly how he planned to murder him without ever tainting himself with Sans's unworthy EXP.  Papyrus was a really creative guy. 

It was a shame he spent all that energy and cleverness on the killing thing. What a world the underground would be, if he had refocused his ambitions. 

Oh well. The same could be said about a lot of monsters. 

 

* * *

 

Things didn't always suck, which just made it all so much harder. The Underground had been a pretty peaceful, normal place back in the day. Ordinary. Maybe even nice, if dreary. Sans just barely remembered that time. He was too young when things changed.

It'd been a plague. No one was sure where it came from, but the scientists were blamed for it. It wasn't normal. It wasn't natural. It was wrong, all wrong, and it was deadly.

The most susceptible were children. The illness took them easily.

They were weak.

 

Sans was one of many children to fall ill. He was one of very few who did not die.

 

Sans's father, Dr. Wingdings Gaster, was a brilliant man, though always somewhat lacking in affections. But like most monsters, he was rarely cruel, so it had come as all the more shocking when he locked Sans away. He hadn't understood. Of course he hadn't understood. He was just a kid. He didn't know what a quarantine was. He didn't understand what a clean room was. All he knew was that he'd been forced away, left alone.

Dr. Gaster wasn't as bad a parent as he could have been. But he could have been so much better.

Sans's strength was sapped away. Only through intensive treatments and isolation was he able to survive. At first it came with explanations and apologies, things Sans was too young to understand, things Gaster was too brilliant to reduce to terms a child could understand. The only things that shined through were the threat of death, and the fact that he would not see his brother again for a very long time. Sans had thought he meant forever.

The apologies became less over time. The explanations vanished. Platitudes and pats on the head were rarer and colder and Sans felt less like a son and more like an experiment. He was too weak to fight back. He was too weak to ask questions. He was too weak.

The best that could be said about that year of near-isolation was that he survived it. He had books to read, mostly of scientific interest, and they weren't anything that appealed to him, but the alternative was to lay there and do nothing. Some days that was preferable.Some days that was all he could manage. (But other days, he read.)

He asked about Papyrus, sometimes, when he gathered up more strength. Gaster had nothing to say. Sans concluded that he was dead. After all, his brother would have come to visit him. They were twins. They were close as close could be. Papyrus would have snuck in. Papyrus would have played with him. Papyrus would have hugged him and read with him and said that things would be okay.

But Papyrus never visited.

 

* * *

 

After a year, Sans was cured. A miracle, maybe, but no one in the world he emerged to would call it that. Father insisted it was science, and his own brilliance. The Underground called it a curse.

Survivors of the affliction were few and far between. In most monsters, the mind went first, then the body. Sans was one of the few lucid enough to know that he was being ostracized. Father had protected his mind. It was his most important feature.  The rest didn't matter. Only the mind.

 

On the outside, monsters had found their own way to combat the illness. If the weak were the victims, surely the problem was being weak. So, if one didn't want their children to fall, they merely needed to make them stronger.

A new generation emerged, of monsters with EXP, with LV, and the effects were slow but terrible. Children were never meant to carry that burden, and the trauma of it all...

 

Kill or be Killed. It was simple.

 

As for Sans and his family… as much as Gaster had wanted a control in the experiments, he’d also wanted to make sure he had at least one son reach adulthood. Sans, he fixed in his own way, all science and experimentation. Papyrus… he kept him safe the common, proven way: 

 

He made him strong.

 

Even with the LV, Papyrus probably wasn’t as bad as he could be. 

But he could have been a lot better, too. 


	43. Weakness (Discarded Unnamed Underfell entry)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just some angst from back in March that was originally going to be slotted into Unnamed Underfell, but I went a somewhat different direction with that in the end, so Papyrus's thoughts here no longer make sense in context. Unnamed Underfell Papyrus isn't nearly this introspective or insightful as a result of what happened to him, but originally his LV was meant to be a slow creep up on him until he found himself unrecognizable. So that's what this is.
> 
> I actually finished up the second half just now.

Papyrus had once been close to his brother, but times change. Monsters change. 

They grow up.

…At least, that is one excuse. One of dozens. If he were to make a list, he fears his feckless little lies would reach the hundreds, and what a weakling he would prove himself to be, then! 

The reasons don't matter. 

Papyrus hates it. He hates not being able to talk to his brother. He hates the way he is. He hates. He hates, and he is  _ so good _ at hating. He hates how much he hates. It wasn't something he had seen in himself, but now it’s all he sees.

He's found power, but it's come at too great a cost for him to justify and believe it. All he’d truly sought in all of this was respect and admiration. The admiration, he realizes, will never come. The respect… is empty. Had he chosen to be a thug, a criminal, he would be just as respected, because all that matters is power, control, and violence. 

He hates that, perhaps, most of all. 

 

He never drinks. He smoked, once, taking an offered cigarette with a grumble, only to discover that there is no effect on a monster without lungs. (An oddity, considering a lack of proper organs is rarely a roadblock otherwise.) He's never tried anything else of the sort. Many monsters do. It's weak and lazy, and he hates how much he understands the desire. Sans, in a drunken stupor, on one of his worst days, had once told him that he just didn't want to be around for a while. He didn't want to feel. He didn't want to be Sans, for a bit. Papyrus had slapped him, right there at the bar. Screamed at him. The thought of Sans wishing he weren't a part of the world anymore had been too much, and he had had poor control over his anger. (It only happened that once. He's gotten better. It's still not enough. He shouldn't have those kinds of impulses to suppress.) 

He'd hated that explanation, then. He hates it even more now. He hated it because it was awful; it was disgusting; it was weak. He hates it because his brother sold him on the concept. Losing control is terrifying. Not being this hateful mess of a person anymore is intoxicating. The world might be a better place for a night, if Papyrus is no longer in it. 

He's never given into the temptation. He knows himself. He would never be able to stop. He had two modes, off and on. Once he's on, that's it. There's no turning back off again.  
  


Still, though Papyrus has never been drunk or high before, but if he had to hazard a guess, he'd say this was close to the feeling. 

He's feeling very odd. Everything feels dreamlike. He doesn't feel like Papyrus anymore. Not the angry mess of masked insecurity of the present, nor the clingy, cuddly child of the past. He's simply… not himself. He's powerful. He's clever. He's not angry, and he doesn't need anyone. 

It's awful. 

He's not well. It's not even a profound difference. Just a buzz, and the feeling of detachment. But the cause… 

He'd killed today. 

He's killed before, of course. He kills when necessary, but only then. He still hates it. It always makes him feel so good and that’s… that’s not a switch he’s happy to have flipped. He’d had to start, right? There had been no choice. Right? It’s kill or be killed, right? Of course. Of course, that’s all true, and it’s easy to accept for now. He knows it won’t be so easy later, though, so he tries not to enjoy it how nice it feels to have all the easy answers at the surface and none of the harder truths beneath it come to light.

Later, he’ll remember that it wasn’t necessary. If he was smarter, if he was stronger, if he wasn’t so weak and so cowardly, he could have found a way to avoid turning into this. He turned on his most important principles the very second it became hard to follow them, and that’s not a virtue in the least. The world can’t get better that way. He’s just made everything worse. Even if it is just that little bit, it doesn’t matter at all. He’s made things worse instead of better. And the switch is flipped, the road is traveled, he can’t turn it off and he can’t undo it. 

 

Sans is weak. Unspeakably weak.

He has no strength to speak of, no health, no defence, his attacks can pack a punch of course but that’s more a quirk of nature than anything else. He’s weak. He’s walking EXP, and not even very much. He’s not strong enough to be worth much.

But Sans has never killed. Not once. His LV, like his everything else, is locked at 1. Sans is weak in many ways. But he’s still better than Papyrus. Sans is strong where it matters… and Papyrus isn’t.

 

There are times Papyrus fantasizes about changing, and going back to the way that he was. He dreams about being better. Making amends. Helping. Being kind, and good, and an asset to the world, rather than just another of the bloodthirsty thugs that mar it. Other times, he fantasizes about cleansing fire. Removing every last source of evil in this world until only the “weak” are left… the ones that aren’t inclined to the kinds of evil Papyrus has seen. He would likely max his LV out before he was done, and wouldn’t that be something? He’d be a match for the king. He could take over. He could be king. He could rule. He could change things. 

But even dazed as he is at the moment, he knows that won’t work. Because they would just be replacing one monster, in every sense of the word, with another. Maybe Papyrus wouldn’t live as long, but that would be the only real improvement. If he’s not strong enough to be the person he wants to be now, with just Sans depending on him (and even then, that dependence is questionable, and he knows it; he just can’t bear to do so) how does he expect to change with more power in his hands? With an even higher LV?

It’s a fantasy. It’s a joke. He would be worse than Asgore. He doesn’t know how to rule. He doesn’t know how to hold back and not insert himself into every situation. He can’t stand not controlling everything in his immediate surroundings. He would be an awful king and an unlovable tyrant and he can’t really handle the thought of that. 

At least as he is now, he expects perhaps the dogs will mourn him. (He certainly couldn’t ask Sans to.)

 

He gives one last thought to the dreams of being king, then lets it fade. He gives a final, aborted half-thought to the idea of maxing out his LV, a thought he’s had before and doesn’t want to consider. (Finishing the job, embracing this feeling of detachment, no longer caring, not being Papyrus anymore.) It’s a feeble-minded thought that has no room in his skull, and he won’t allow its roots to grow there no matter how pleasant or persistent. 

The buzz of LV is wearing off, and he’s going to be moody for a while. 

He heads to his room, locks his door tight, to keep himself in and all others out, and thinks about just how fucking weak he is.


	44. KPCV - 2 Snippets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are two snippets of KPCV that were in their own document. They go together, so I'm posting them together.

Sans couldn't say that nothing was wrong. Papyrus was handling the job really well but there were times he just seemed so… un-Papyrus. One time, after a visit to the CORE distributing pasta to the workers there, Papyrus cancelled his afternoon council meeting, plopped in the chair by the fire and and did nothing else for the rest of the day but sit there, occasionally muttering about his hatred of Hotland. The next morning he was his chipper self again.

 

Another time, he left their New Home house in the middle of the night, armed with only a duffle bag and a look of pure determination. He returned about an hour later, deepset frown and refusing to meet Sans's eye. 

“what's eating you?” he'd asked. 

He was met with silence, until Papyrus turned to him. His expression was… God, he didn't know what that expression was, besides wrong. He couldn't even picture it now, but the anxiety that bubbled in his soul after seeing it still felt every bit as real as it did when it first happened. Voice distant, his brother had asked, “Did you ever find a way to cross the barrier in your studies? A way for anything to cross it?”

That had thrown him, and only made his worries stronger. He sounded so tired (it was past midnight, but that didn't seem to be the only answer), but more than that, Papyrus  _ never _ asked about Sans's studies. Never asked, never acknowledged. Sans hadn't even been aware he remembered Sans's old career. 

Silence hung between them again, and Sans wasn't sure he had an answer. Not one Papyrus would like, anyway. Still, he didn't want to add another lie to the list. “...y-yeah.” He swallowed. “...absorb a human soul and walk through.”

It wasn't funny.

There was nothing funny about it. 

Papyrus nodded. Expressionless. “Well, I'm going to bed. Goodnight, brother.”

Again, the next morning, nothing. He never brought it up again.

 

As much as part of him worried, it made sense for Papyrus to act this way. Painful as it was to admit, Papyrus hadn't developed the habit of distracting from problems and never bringing them up again from nowhere. Of course he would try to be willfully ignorant when ignorant was what he was used to being. And of course Papyrus couldn't be completely care free! He was the king. He'd gone from very few real responsibilities to the weight of the entire Kingdom on his shoulders. Sans would do anything to relieve some of that burden. If relief came on the form of avoidance, he wasn't going to argue. At least not with it being such a rare occurrence.

 

* * *

 

Flowey gave the skeleton a look. Over the last few hours, Papyrus had mentioned a lot of odd things… things that didn’t fit into the picture of his life Flowey had already formed over countless resets. This was new, and it was fascinating, and if Papyrus was willing to open up, then of course he was gonna persue this. Absolutely! How could he not pry?? This could be his only chance. “So when exactly was all of this anyway?”

“I’M NOT SURE! IT’S ALL A BIT FUZZY IF I’M BEING HONEST! WHICH I AM! MORE OR LESS.” More or less. Ugh, it was so frustrating trying to get straight answers out of the skeletons, and it was even worse being unable to reset. He knew how to work Papyrus, but it wasn’t exactly easy and it didn’t always work. It was easiest to ask in bites over resets, not in long, drawn out conversations. This way always ran dangerously close to Papyrus shutting down. But Flowey lacked the patience as well as the control of time and space. He would just have to push on.

“...right, but I thought you said you remembered all of this with ‘perfect clarity.’”

“I DO!” Papyrus beamed, proudly. 

Flowey suppressed a glare. “But perfect clarity is…  _ fuzzy _ .”

“SEE, YOU’VE GOT IT!“

“No I really don’t.”

Papyrus frowned, but it wasn’t a genuine frown. He was putting on an act. It was hard to tell, but Flowey knew. The skeleton king tapped a finger to his chin. “HMM… HOW CAN I PUT THIS? IMAGINE YOU HAVE A BOWL FULL OF SPAGHETTI. JUST, IMAGINE THAT FOR A MOMENT. VISUALIZE THE SPAGHETTI.” He mimed closing his eyes and thinking hard before he opened his sockets again. “DO YOU HAVE IT?” 

“...uh.” Flowey hesitated but realized the best way to get Papyrus to cooperate was to play along. It kind of reminded him of old games from better days. “Sure.” He closed his eyes.

“NOW, OPEN YOUR EYES, AND THINK BACK TO THE SPAGHETTI. YOU REMEMBER WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE, RIGHT?”

“Yeah. Bowl of spaghetti. Not exactly a challenging image.”

Papyrus’s smile turned almost-smug. “AH, BUT DO YOU REMEMBER THE INDIVIDUAL NOODLES? THE EXACT CONFIGURATION OF BANANA BITS IN THE SAUCE?” Flowey’s lack of amusement must have shown. “OF COURSE NOT! YOU ONLY REMEMBER THE BOWL! THE WAY IT ALL LOOKED TOGETHER! BECAUSE THAT IS HOW A MEMORY WORKS!”

“Right. I’m kind of seeing your point… I think.” That was a lie, but he could figure it out if the monster just kept talking.

“RIGHT! WELL MY MEMORIES OF THAT TIME…. ARE THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THAT!”

“Lost me again.”

“RIGHT, WELL THEN, PERHAPS YOU CAN IMAGINE A--”

“Papyrus.”

“NO NO, PICTURE A PARTICULARLY ANGRY WORM INTENT ON--”

Ugh. “Papyrus...."

“AND AT THE SAME TIME THERE IS A BOX OF NOODLES, MADE ENTIRELY OUT OF SNOW AND SMALLER NOODLES. NOW THE WORM IS---”

**_“PAPYRUS.”_ **

 

Papyrus glanced at him, sighing. All enthusiasm seemed to leave his body, only to be replaced with an unfocused, almost angry energy. The skeleton looked away and began to rant, this time less to Flowey than to himself. 

His entire body language had shifted. Large sweeping gestures became mockeries themselves, like he was giving a lecture, rather than explaining a fun new thing his favorite friend. This wasn't a mood Papyrus shifted into often in front of him, and he took in the novelty of it. 

“IT’S LIKE I HAVE A LOT OF JIGSAW PIECES BUT THEY DON’T LINE UP CORRECTLY. I KNOW WHAT’S ON EACH PIECE, I HAVE AN IDEA OF WHAT THE COMPLETED PUZZLE MUST LOOK LIKE, BUT THE SHAPES AREN’T CUT OUT CORRECTLY AND THERE’S NO WAY TO PROPERLY OVERLAP THEM. IT’S BROKEN.”

“Why didn’t you just explain it like that in the first place?”

Another shift. This time all theatricality was abandoned. He seemed to pull back on the professor persona, but instead of replacing it with his usual optimism or bluster, he simply withdrew entirely. He slouched and sighed. 

He looked just like his trash bag brother, standing there like that. Another novelty. 

“I SUPPOSE… I DON’T… I don’t actually want to talk about this,” he explained, in a tone best described as tired. “It gives me a headache, it feels… funny… and it just really bothers me on a level i’m not really comfortable with.” He started to wring his hands together before seeing what he was doing and stopping just as fast. “It’s more fun to make it a game and get off track than it is to admit that my half of my life's history is so… broken. And it makes me wonder what else might be broken that i’m just unaware of. I feel… not very… great… when I think about all this. The… the o-opposite actually. I don’t even feel like… like p-p-papyrus anymore. let… let alone the g-great papyrus… i just don’t really… feel… whole? o-or... real? 

He looked so tired, without any attempt to hide it. Possibly too tired to try. 

Flowey couldn't pretend what Papyrus was saying was completely foreign to him. Memories of his desperation, his decision, fading away… the potential to become nothing… it wasn't the same but it was too similar for comfort. This was usually the time he would smile and say something calculated and optimistic, maybe offer a to let him cry it out. Whatever it took to keep the idiot charmed, but this… didn't feel like the time for manipulation, so he just stared back at the skeleton whose eyes had gone blank. 

“I'm sorry, Flowey. I'm not being a very good host right now. Would you like to come back tomorrow?” 


	45. Unnamed Underfell Snip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was in the same doc as "You Don't Have To Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here." It was just an angst I didn't end up using, nearly identical to other underfell angsts of mine

He missed his brother. 

It was a thought that hit him harder than any enemy could. It make his bones feel as if they'd turned to stone instead of the living, magical matter they were. He sat there, rigid and anxious. Dear God, he missed his brother. 

Sans was just a room away. He only needed to go out into the hall, and tap on the door. It would work just fine. He could see him face to face. It would be so easy… but it wouldn't help.

He'd pushed him away. There were so many excuses as to why, but not one of them changed the fact that it had happened, and that Sans had not resisted. He had simply… accepted it. As if what Papyrus had done, what Papyrus had become, was the natural order of things. As if their brotherhood was not worth fighting for. 

_ He _ wasn't worth fighting for, was he? 


	46. Some Nonsense I Didn't Continue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Nonsense I Didn't Continue
> 
> aka I don't remember what this was gonna be. This is another from March.

Good is a choice, and bad is a choice, and perhaps, sometimes, bad is an easier choice. He understands. He’s not naive. He knows. He knows, he knows, he knows. But he also knows that no one is born bad. No one takes their first steps and speaks their first words and decides that with this power, they will hate, they will destroy, they will corrupt. No one starts out bad or good. It’s a matter of choice. And Papyrus believes, truly believes, that the choice of good is the one most people want to make. 

When Asgore stands at the front of the throne, and kills a child, murders them, helpless, terrified, he doesn’t do it because he’s evil. He does it because he is good, and he’s made a decision, and that decision is for the sake of good. When Sans lies, again, and again, while it’s hurting his brother, he doesn’t do it because he’s cruel. He does it because he thinks he’s helping. He thinks it’s the good choice. Sometimes good is hard to see. Sometimes it’s destructive. Sometimes good intentions beget bad actions. Papyrus understands. But the intention is what matters. The intention is the difference between being stuck in an endless loop of cruelty, and reform.


	47. UF Experimental Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was an idea that I had that eventually morphed into something else that eventually mutated into SURVIVE, that darkfic I shoved in here earlier on in the chapter list. The idea of UF Papyrus losing his sense of self and trying to recover it is something i'm extremely interested in if you haven't already noticed that trend and this was a really blatant variation of that
> 
> The backstory here is that Papyrus was tried for treason after Asgore died and Undyne took over. Sans used his strings as judge and Undyne's former friendship with Papyrus to spare him a death sentence... but only if he submitted to Alphys's experiments. Sans agreed under the agreement that he wouldn't be used for the amalgamate program.
> 
> In this version, it was an experimental empathy drug gone wrong, though later on I made it some kind of outright soul-experimentation to reset LV to 1. I like that version better but I don't remember if I actually wrote anything with it. If I did, I haven't found that file yet.

“It figures the one time you refuse to be merciful is when it's your own brother.”

“This is mercy, boss.”

“No. Mercy would be finishing me here and now before your old friend turns me into one of her abominations.”

“This isn't the same experiment.”

“Sans, are you really this naïve?  Any fate the good doctor can give me is one worse than death. You don't do what I have done and receive a slap on the wrist.”

“...”

“... Any final words?”

“Boss?”

“If you won't give me a final action I can be proud of, at least say something to me. This is probably the final chance you'll get before I end up in a jar, as dust or whatever else.”

“Boss…”

“‘Boss,’” he repeated back to him, with such distaste and massive in his voice that Sans couldn't help but flinch. That's had always been the right thing to say… until it wasn't. Until now. “Is that really the way you wish to end this?” His tone softened. “At least say goodbye.”

“This… this isn't goodbye, boss. You're gonna be okay.”

“Goodbye, Sans.”

 

* * *

 

Sans waited for hours upon hours. He'd drifted off once it twice into trouble sleep, only to be woken up almost immediately after by the imagined screams of his brother. 

He hadn't expected it when Alphys came back out with Papyrus in tow… or at least… something that looked like Papyrus. The posture, however, was lax and slumped, his gait strange and shuffling, a far fall from the prideful way he always carried himself. His face, too, seemed eerily wrong. There was no tension. The ever present scowl was gone. His eyes were wider than Sans could remember seeing them, but the lights has gone out inside. 

“Go to your brother now.”

Papyrus's head tilted as if trying to understand the command, before he gave a mechanical nod and shambled over to Sans. 

 

* * *

 

“you used EMP on my brother?”

EMP was infamous. If there was one thing more feared to come out of the lab than the amalgamates, it was EMP.

It was a powerful drug, originally designed for the purposes of reversing LOVE’s effects on monsters. That project itself was very quietly pursued, and just as quietly abandoned when EMP’s true nature was revealed. In theory, it was meant to induce empathy into monsters who were otherwise lacking. In practice, it inhibited the soul’s ability to recognize itself entirely. There was empathy, or course, but there was nothing else. Just a raw, empty husk, open to any suggestion or intent. It was, technically, temporary. Generally that didn’t make a bit of difference. The damage done beneath the influence lasted. 

 

* * *

 

It took three weeks before Papyrus had achieved what could possibly be called consciousness. His eye lights did not glow for more than a moment, flickering and dull, more gray than white, all traces of red gone from them. While it made sense that he would be lacking in red immediately after waking, Sans couldn't remember the last time his brother looked at the world without a filter of violent scarlet. 

The lights died out entirely, but Papyrus did not close his sockets. He made some noise, a groan and what may have been an attempt at speech, but the words turned to ash in his maw before he could be understood. 

That was it. He lost consciousness again shortly after. It wasn't until days later that Sans’s brother awoke and stayed awake… but he said nothing. He made no sound at all.


	48. Experiment Bros Starter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was one of many attempts at writing a gaster clones/experiments thing where Sans and Papyrus were at odds. In this one, Papyrus was going to be evil or something, but I never got to the part where he shows up.

When sans had left the facility all those years ago, his expectation was that he would be leaving alone. The doctor was dead, or gone, at least, his influence extinguished from the world, and Sans was free. He'd never felt an absolute need for freedom before this; Gaster had in many ways been a father to him. But there has been an intent he could not place at the time, a darkness about the man, and Sans had begun to worry. He had begun to fear. 

He never acted on it. One day, the doctor did not appear. Then the next. Then the next. The locks that has keyed into his unique signature failed. Files they had worked on together that existed as an extension of the doctor's magic broke. His presence had been extinguished. 

At first, Sans had been scared, and perhaps even a touch mournful. The doctor had worried him terribly, but he had been the only other person that Sans had ever known. He was dimly aware from their research that Gaster was not the only one who existed in the world, and yet it was clear to see

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Paps killed Gaster)


	49. Underswap Dialogue - The Coolest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was just a little dialogue of Swap Pap and Swap Sans after making Swap Sans's costume. I wasn't really feeling it after I started.

“people are gonna think you're so cool, bro. you're gonna look awesome”

“YOU KNOW, PAPYRUS, I DON'T REALLY WORRY TOO MUCH ABOUT THAT. I HAVE FRIENDS. YOU REALLY DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT IT!”

“...heh. yeah, sorry. i guess i just… heh heh… nothing.”

“PAPYRUS, YOU KNOW YOU'RE THE COOLEST, RIGHT?”

“nyeh! … heh, thanks, bro”


	50. Repetitions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was a thing for a thing but I decided not to go with it. A revision/Sans POV version became "Changes"

Papyrus died a lot.

The human no longer looked at him with a smile or with a dark glare. The human no longer looked at him at all. There were no giggles or sobs or smiles or tears or anything of the sort. Instead, they seemed… _scared._

They were _scared_ of him.

It hurt at first, both the fear and the dying. The day before, too, knowing it was the day before everything changed for everyone else, and everything repeated for him, on a loop. Eventually he just got used to it. It was still uncomfortable. Moreso, in fact, but it was fine.

He accepted it.

He would heat up old spaghetti and pass it off as fresh. Sans did not seem to notice. He went to work, usually just recalibrating the same puzzle again and again, not with any real enthusiasm. He would stand by his station from time to time, grin plastered on his face, but mind elsewhere entirely. He would spar with Undyne, which generally changed each time. She would call him out on not being on his game and he would apologize. Tomorrow, everything would be right back on track. He promised.

Then he would go home, Sans would go to Grillbys, and the next morning he would wake up, make breakfast, and die a little bit before lunchtime.

He stopped asking the human questions. He stopped trying to make sense of it. He stopped wondering if something would change.

Truthfully, he just stopped.

He didn't really feel like himself anymore, not who he had been before this started, not who he had been as king. Not any kind of Papyrus at all.

He started skipping his lessons. He started spending his entire shift tightening a single bolt. He started experimenting with how little he could get away with thinking, or speaking, or existing before that finally became a reality.

Time repeated itself three times in a row before he was called out on being silent.

It had been Sans.

Papyrus couldn't decide if it made him feel better or worse that his brother picked up on it. He decided the better cancelled out the worse, the worse cancelled out the better, and he didn't bother to feel anything else in particular.

He did try to find something to talk about the next time, though. It never lasted long, anyway. The human wouldn't answer him, wouldn't look him in the eye, and certainly wouldn't spare him. Papyrus supposed he wasn't the only one that kept to the same hopeless routine. He wouldn't let them go on without the fight.


	51. Soulless Experiment Bros - Old WIP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This kinda works on its own, but not really. This was going to be part of a longer experiment-bros oneshot, and then it became the basis of the flashback in Taming of the Beast. I MIGHT use this again as part of a sequel to that, but with a different result to the tampering, obviously. This was also supposed to connect to an AU I never ended up rolling with... and it was also based on a horror oneshot I planned to write but couldn't bring myself to.
> 
> (and coming full circle, both the WIP sequel to Taming of the Beast and SURVIVE were written as horror/dark fics and were both also based on this)
> 
> So this was like... the link in a chain of fics I never ended up liking.

The screaming stopped almost suddenly. 

Empty sockets transfixed upon the object before them. The lights inside of them had gone out recently, though the timing would have been difficult to pinpoint. They may have fled when the procedure started, the screaming, the noise. Perhaps it accompanied the fear that struck the subject right before that very moment. Or maybe the lights left the subject's eyes at the same time it left its chest, along with the screams, along with the fears. There were no fears now. There was a light, but it was no longer inside. 

It glowed before the subject. The light's very presence, separate, apart, displaced, was a marvel of science and magic. An experiment originally deemed too risky, too soon. Too many things could go wrong. A potential loss. 

But as the doctor studied the subject with interest, he saw no loss of his own. No more light, no more fear… no more disobedience. 

“Subject 2.”

There was no response. 

The doctor grasped at the subject's shoulders, attempting to break the line of sight between the subject and it's soul. It blinked. Still alive, then. That was good. An unlikely result, he had half expected a dusting, but it was good. A breakthrough. Subject 2 had proven its worth at last, and given him a breakthrough. 

 

“Subject 2. Can you hear me?”

 

A blink. A nod.

“Yes.”

A flat tone. Expressionless.

 

The doctor smiled. 

“Good.”

 

The subject turned away, back to staring at the light, as if staring would be enough to return it. As if, if it just stared long enough into the light, the shimmering lights once housed in its sockets would find their way home again. 

(In fact, they never would.)

The doctor went to work. Removing a soul had seemed impossible, but it was not, though also not without its consequences. The subject was weak and destabilizing. There was no loss of health, but the subject's physicality was beginning to show signs of imminent deterioration. Still, it seemed the soul could be at least somewhat tampered with without causing death. 

But what was a monster without a soul? How long could it survive cut off from its core? And was it possible to prolong this state rather than return the full connection?

So many questions. 

The subject did not remove its gaze from the light of its soul, watching as he worked. The doctor asked the subject questions borne of curiosity. What was this state like for it? What could it do? Did it still feel a connection? Clearly some things had been severed, the subject’s stillness and silence were evidence of that. It has never been described by such terms before. A walking headache was all it had ever been. 

The subject did not reply to anything that was not yes or no, and even then it took some prompting. It was no longer an act of defiance. The subject simply seemed to lack focus. If the soul was in its line of sight, it could think of nothing else. 

Very interesting. 

An adjustment and then the soul was returned to its original spot, though the fit no longer seemed perfectly suited, and it returned without any kind of fanfare. The doctor watched expectantly to see how the alteration might take.  

The subject blinked. Once. Twice. Slow at first, followed by a more rapid approach to the task. It seemed more aware, now, but not quite itself. 

A hand clumsily pawed at its chest, as if checking to see if the soul was actually present.  The subject started at its hand, then, as if it was a stranger to it. Coordination had not been a trait the doctor had intended to target, but the subject may have been off kilter from the original procedure. 

Questioning began, and while the subject preferred short, simple answers, it's range had expanded beyond what its fully soulless mind had been capable of. Yes and no, but also its designation, purpose, current state. It peppered nothing with emotional detail. The doctor was unsure if the subject was capable of any, but that suited him fine. 

The subject stared at him, swaying and inexpressive. It was almost a tad off-putting, but only almost. The change in the subject's behavior was too welcome to cause much else. A shame the other was too weak to undergo a similar process. Wouldn't it be lovely if they were both so well behaved?

Really, though, all he needed was the one to ensure compliance. 


	52. Soulless Experiment Bros - Cont

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These were the other parts of that "Soulless" experiment bros AU. You can see the broad strokes that I reused for Taming of the Beast. I don't like these as much (Sans's POV is WAY off) but I don't see a reason not to post them (and have 5 chapters ready to add another wave)

His brother had not wanted to go with the doctor. He had tried to fight this time, mainly with words, but then with action, and that was when something changed in the doctor. The seeds of an idea, a snapping, a shift from anger into an amusement of sorts. 

Gentle was not the word for it, but the doctor had always been  _ careful _ with them. They were his property. His investments. Something he needed preserved beyond the usual testing and experiments. 

Gentle was certainly not the word for how the doctor had treated his brother earlier that day.  It was clear that that thin layer of protection had been used up. This was a new doctor, a new game…

 

...and when they returned, a new “brother.”

He had left screaming and in pain, but upon his return there was only silence. He did not flinch away from the doctor, as Subject 1 would have expected after such a fight. Nor did he react when the two subjects reunited. There was no touching or holding –Subject 2 had always been the affectionate one– no smile or frown or look in his eyes to tell the tale of what had happened. There was nothing there, really. Just a vacancy, and the creeping realization that his brother might be gone. 

Subject 2 did not answer his questions when the doctor left, and he had justified it at first. They both knew– or at least, Subject 1 knew– the doctor was still listening, still observing, still actively conducting an experiment, this time the experiment being their new-found interactions. 

Maybe his brother was just pretending. Sometimes he had. He liked to do that. It was an act of defiance, but also a coping mechanism he'd developed. 

But hours passed, and the presence of the doctor ebbed, and that should have been enough to change the game. It did not. 

That night, for the first time since they had been placed together, Subject 1 slept alone. 

Subject 2 did not sleep at all. 

 

* * *

  
  
Subject 1 was not a pretender. Not like Subject 2. He wasn't very good at it. He didn't quite know how to lie to himself enough to pull it off. He couldn't imagine not being himself, and not being in this situation. 

Yet it proved very easy to pretend like this was not his brother, because  _ this was not his brother.  _

This new thing was obedient to a fault. It would allow itself injury without flinching. It would do exactly as it was told–only by the doctor– and nothing more, and nothing less. No subtle victories in making mistakes. Subject 2’s works and performances were acts of perfection. Even when a task was hard, too hard for Subject 1, Subject 2 would do it without complaint or unease. 

Subject 1 remembered all the times his brother had sabotaged himself to ensure that the two were seen as equal. He missed that beyond belief, not because he liked the benefit, but because it was such an act of care and consideration. 

The subjects were not “people,” but his brother had been better than people. He been so, so good. Kind, caring, assertive, protective. He'd been a wonderful brother. Subject 1 missed him with every fiber of his being. 

Now he couldn't help but look at his brother's replacement, his husk, with contempt. Another thing the doctor had taken, but also a traitor in and of itself. A spy, a snitch, and other things the subject had not names for, only a person who exemplified them. 

It was easier if this was not his brother. It wasn't even hard to pretend. 

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

Subject 2 remembered seeing the light that belonged inside of him. So bright. So pretty. His. 

It was supposed to be his. Only his. 

But then it wasn't. It had been changed to something else. Something not-him. And if that was changed… was there even a him anymore?

He wasn't sure. 

Most days, he didn't even wonder. 

The doctor didn't hurt him anymore. It was generally his primary concern. Some days, he thought there might even be some affection there. He wasn't sure if that should make him happy. It didn't. But before he saw that light, he'd wanted the doctor to like him. That was a secret, of course. Subject 1 did not like the doctor. And he'd wanted Subject 1 to like him so badly.

And he had. 

Now things were reversed and he didn't really care. He couldn't. Even if the doctor hadn't changed him, he probably couldn't. 

He'd seen the light. 

It had been flickering. 

 

He thought it might be all gone now. He certainly didn't feel it anymore. 


	53. A Soft Reset - Old WIP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was me playing around with the Papyrus-is-Gaster-who-forgot-himself theory. I liked the idea but it wasn't very fun to write. But as a bonus it's big brother Papyrus, which is a really interesting dynamic to me.
> 
> There's two versions of this, the original and an attempted restart. Normally I would stick them in different chapters or just pick one... but I don't really see much of a point. So if you're wondering why its so redundant, thats why.

 

 

 

> _“YOU KNOW, SANS, FLUFFY BUNNY IS A VERY IMPORTANT BOOK!”_
> 
> _“really?? why is that??”_
> 
> _“BECAUSE IT'S YOUR FAVORITE! AND MINE, TOO!”_
> 
> _“why is this book your favorite? i thought the puzzle book was??”_
> 
> _“WELL, THAT ONE IS MY FAVORITE TOO.”_
> 
> _“you can't have two favorites!”_
> 
> _“THEN I PICK FLUFFY BUNNY!”_
> 
> _“why?”_
> 
> _“BECAUSE I KNOW IT'S YOUR FAVORITE! WHENEVER I READ THIS BOOK, I CAN'T HELP BUT THINK OF ALL THE TIMES I READ THIS TO YOU. HOW COULD I EVER BE SAD, THINKING ABOUT SO MANY WONDERFUL MEMORIES? PUZZLES ARE GREAT, BUT MEMORIES WITH YOU ARE EVEN GREATER!! …AND YOU KNOW THE OTHER REASON THIS IS MY FAVORITE BOOK?”_
> 
> _“no… why?”_
> 
> _“BECAUSE THE ENDING ALWAYS GETS ME!”_
> 
> _“noooo!!! not a tickle attack!! mercy, _________! mercy!”_
> 
> * * *
> 
>  

Sans stood by his brother's bedside feeling utterly lost. It was becoming a very familiar kind of feeling. He hated it.

For his whole life, he'd gone to his big brother for help and advice, and sure, he was sometimes a little eccentric, and he wasn't the best person for social matters, but his brother was always so smart, and so wise, and he always, always made Sans feel better.

Now he was sitting in a hospital bed, in a perpetual state of falling down, eyes unfocused, face slack, mind gone somewhere Sans was sure he couldn't follow, no matter how desperately he wanted to.

The worst of it was, he couldn't even remember his brother's name. It made him feel sick. He'd known it. He'd said it, called for him, at the start of all this, the… accident? (The details were fuzzy. He'd been there, but the memory didn't seem to take.) But when he spoke the name, his thoughts went blank, and he snapped out of it moments later, the knowledge of the name, gone, and with it a feeling that something else had slipped and lessened.

He could still remember finding him. His brother's face, all ripped up, bones cracked, some warped and deformed. He wasn't supposed to look like that. He wasn't supposed to be broken.

There was a sound his brother made when he awoke in the chaos, a scream–almost– but a broken one, unearthly and unlike any sound Sans had ever heard, warped and distorted. The agony behind it was too great to even mask.

  


Sans sat at his brother's bedside. He felt hopeless. That, too, was becoming a familiar feeling.

It had been a bit tricky, convincing the hospital to take in a patient with no name, and no history, but he'd managed. His brother deserved the best care in the Underground. A few months ago, he would have received nothing less without question, but…

 

But… no one remembered him now.  

It was a miracle that Sans could remember. He felt sick at the thought of losing the most important person in his life… and losing all knowledge that he had ever been there at all. Even now, his memories were fuzzy and vague, even his brother's name was gone, but what he had left was enough. (It would have to be enough.)

 

He would do whatever he could to keep his brother alive. Even if he lost him, he had to keep his brother alive. It was the only way to make sure he stayed real.

* * *

* * *

**(ATTEMPTED REWRITE)**

* * *

* * *

 

“Hey bro, I brought you a new puzzle. It…” he paused, searching for the words only to let them die in his maw. His brother didn't need an explanation. His brother wouldn't hear it. Sans may have wanted to justify the size of the puzzle (small, only 20 pieces. It was made for children.), but there was no point. If his brother did notice, if he did care, he could yell and scream all he wanted. He never would have done so before –it was wrong to even imagine him that way– but it would be a welcome change.

Anything was better than the empty sockets and slack expression his brother wore, now. What Sans wouldn't give for a spark of life.

It had been five weeks since he became a ward off the biggest (and only) hospital in the Underground. It had been tricky getting a monster without a name and without a history taken in, but monsters were never the types to ignore one of their own in need, and Sans's brother was very much in need.

But there had been questions. So many questions.

What happened? How did he get like this? How long has he been unconscious? Did someone do this to him? What's his name? Date of birth? Occupation? Medical records? Next of kin?

The last was the only one with a clear answer. Sans knew that this was his brother.

The rest was quite unclear.

Sans gradually remembered things. Small things, at first, though with some effort the larger picture started to form. It was like a puzzle with half the pieces missing, but he knew his brother would have enjoyed the metaphor, and knowing that make it worth it. He remembered hugs and smiles and the way his brother introduced him to the stars. He remembered his first day of school, the packed lunches his brother made for him. He remembered cuddles and movie nights and how much he looked up to him. His big brother, strong and proud and brave and so incredibly smart.

(Now, his mind had gone somewhere Sans was certain he could not follow. It didn't matter how badly wanted to.)

He did not remember his brother's name. He remembered the lab, though all details were lost. He did not remember what happened. He did not remember so many things he wished he could.

But Sans remembered enough to know his brother was his hero. That was enough.

It had to be.


	54. Wrong Side of the Bed - Preview???

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OKAY, so I dug this up, and I LIKE this, the problem is I don't like where it was going, so if I continue it, I have to continue it in some other way and I can't think of any options for that right now, so I'm just gonna post part here for now and continue another time.

Papyrus was having one of those days. 

Sans once made a joke about it being him waking up on the wrong side of the bed. Papyrus didn't generally believe there  _ could _ be a wrong side, though he would defer to Sans's wisdom here. He  _ was _ the expert on sleeping after all.

But today, he believed, the description was apt. Papyrus had woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Any possible side was the wrong side. Sleeping at all had been the wrong thing. Waking up had been the wrong thing. Everything was wrong. The side of the bed, too, must have been wrong, if only as collateral. Perhaps that was the meaning of the phrase. Being so… so…  **_this_ ** towards everything that  _ nothing _ was safe, not even the pettiest little things. 

This was not the simple sort of irritation that came from Sans leaving a sock lying about in the living room. (Though had there been any more socks than just the usual, Papyrus likely would have committed a violence. A big violence.) No, this irritation was at a much higher level. The closest his mind was able to supply was “My entire home has been infested with dirty socks. What once was a safe haven of comfort and cleanliness has become a pile of refuse and filth. I am literally suffocating in unwashed foot-underwear, and I don't even have lungs. This is how I will die.”

Even that didn't quite match the mood. Too somber. Perhaps if the house was on fire, but then at least the socks would burn. Maybe the socks were flame resistant? So only the things that actually mattered would burn. And the sock fumes would worsen because they would  _ cook! _

He still wasn't certain the metaphor held, but he got so angry at the thought of it that he left the house for the day without breakfast. Normally he prepared something for both himself and Sans, but not this morning. Passion was important for the culinary arts, but throwing pans through the window was generally not conducive to mastery of flavor! He felt this was a very likely scenario if he even considered cooking this morning. 

Forget cooking. 

He hated cooking. He didn't want to cook. He didn't need to cook. He didn't need to eat. Sans didn't need to eat. Sans could starve for all he…

No. 

No, no matter how strong his random, directionless anger was this morning, he refused to allow that thought to finish. He cared. He loved Sans. And he loved cooking, most of the time. Just not today. He didn't hate anything. He didn't want to hate anything. And dwelling on the negative thoughts was… was  **not** a choice befitting the Great Papyrus! No matter how sweet the catharsis might sound, it would only last a moment. Relief would be brief and resentment might linger _.  _ Some things he simply couldn't afford. 

Sans could go to Grillbys. Or, if he  _ actually wanted _ some spaghetti, there were always, always leftovers. Sans would not starve. Sans could survive a day without him. And… he would check in. Later. And he'd leave the phone on, even though the very thought of it buzzing or ringing left an aching throb echoing back and forth through his skull.  Papyrus knew with the mood he was in he was likely to snap at his brother, and though there were the rare times that Sans very much deserved that and more, he wasn't even awake yet. He'd done nothing wrong. And he likely wouldn't have a chance to  _ do _ something wrong before Papyrus went after him. 

He just needed to be alone today. 


	55. Please Sir - Preview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This... is something I have started many, many times, and I actually like the new direction I've started taking it in... BUT, I've hit a minor roadblock, so for now I'm going to put a little bit here and come back to it at another time.
> 
> This is only the first like... 6th of what i have written thus far of this, so its a short preview

“Please, sir… I don’t want to fight.”

The child stared up at him with large bright eyes, shining with the threat of tears. 

His hand trembled. That sweet, sweet voice… it could be his own child’s. _They_ _could be his own child._ He braced himself before fantasies of possibilities began to flood his mind. No. He had already spilled blood. This had already begun. There was no end to this. There was no choice. There was no option.

At least, not one that he was strong enough to make. “Chi-- Human, I… it was nice to meet you. I am sorry. This is all that we can do.”

“I… I won’t give up, you know.”

The King nodded, sadly. Unfortunately, neither would he. He readied his trident. There was nothing left for him to say. No excuse or justification could make this easier. The child did not deserve to hear such cowardly sentiments. It was like spitting on a grave, letting dust linger where it fell, without care. King Asgore did not mock the dead. Even if they still stood before him, listening and attentive and tearful… 

…but not scared. No… they certainly were not scared. He saw no fear in the child. Only… determination.

The King stood, waiting. He allowed the child to make the first move, as was customary, as was fair. They were a brave child, a strong child. They might have the strength necessary. They might have the will. They might strike him down, and that… that consequence was not unappealing. They were brave. He was a coward. And one of them was fated to die. How great might justice be, if only it was him instead.

He tried to dispel the thought. He deserved no such mercy.


	56. Interdimensional Hotdog Stand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good idea, bad execution. I'll probably rewrite this at some point maybe. Sans meets a bunch of other sanses and discovers he's the normal one

Sans remembered, once upon a time, thinking how cool it would be to explore alternate universes and timelines. What would things be like? What would his other selves have to say? Would there be worlds where he got to see the stars? Where Papyrus got to drive down a long highway, just like he was always dreaming about? What about Gaster? Would he still be kicking in some others? What about his Gaster? Theoretically or was possible he was out there, somewhere, floating along in the edges between worlds.

The whole idea was really neat, once.

Now though? It turns out it was nothing but a pain.

See, there were alternate universes out there, but they weren't really as cool as he might have imagined, and traveling to them was… complicated. It required a very specific kind of event, and that specific kind of event would probably knock him right out of his world, with no hope of ever coming back.

For obvious reasons, that idea sucked.

But an event has happened to Sans's world. It wasn't one that let people leave, but it turned their whole world into an open door with a big, flashy beacon. Apparently their borders were totally open, and their machine was working completely right, and that combination was super rare.

The reason Sans knew this was because he'd told him that. Who was he? Well, he was him: another Sans, from another world.

That had been the first one. Red and black jacket, sharp teeth, really sweaty. “Red” he called himself. The traveling types were usually into nicknames. Red looked like someone beat the shit out of him. Sans didn't ask. They talked instead about the multiverse and Red left a bunch of ominous warnings about other versions of himself and Sans didn't catch the descriptions or the names because they all sounded like they were just him in some dumb costumes and if an evil one really wanted to slip on past they could just change their jacket. Sans would. Maybe he was the smart one.

The easiest thing, he decided, was to just greet and appease any visitors that came through, maybe hear their stories, take some notes, send ‘em along. Easy.

So he put up a sign in the basement: “ring the bell for a free hotdog” and every alternate self, without question, rang the bell. And of course, he always brought them a hotdog. Free. But the second one would cost them. Most didn't ask for a second. Sans realized pretty quickly that that was because his alternates were all really boring.

So far, no evil selves. 


	57. a goodnight story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a friend of mine wanted some hurt/comfort with undyne comforting papyrus. 
> 
> I felt like being a jerk that day.

Papyrus is crying. 

Undyne doesn’t really know why and it’s honestly pretty freaking weird because he just showed up in her living room and it was 2am. Didn’t even open the door. She would have heard that. But it was also weird because Papyrus was always a total champ about everything and never cried in front of her before.

She was probably being silly, thinking he didn’t have bad moments. Everyone has bad moments!

Unfortunately, Undyne has never really gotten the feelings stuff or the hurt comfort stuff, and there’s really only one way she knows of to solve a problem.

“SUPLEX OF FRIENDSHIP TIME, PAPYRUS!!!!”

“NYEHH??????”

* * *

“THANK YOU UNDYNE. I FEEL MUCH BETTER NOW THAT I CAN’T FEEL MY FACE!!!”

“Can’t cry if you can’t make tears anymore! Gotta think smart!”

“WOWIE, I NEVER THOUGHT OF IT LIKE THAT!!!”

“And NOW it’s time to suplex you for breaking and entering you bony freak!!!”

“UNDYNE NOOOOOOO”


	58. Discarded Draft - A Mission from the King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to rewrite this and expand on it, but it'll be a while.

Papyrus popped the collar on his incredibly cool dark purple overcoat and walked deeper into Waterfall. The ground was all muddy, and he wondered if his new shoes were waterproof. (If not, it wouldn't be hard to obtain another pair. Just ask the king! He always loved shopping trips!). He didn't recall this part of the zone being so… disgusting. Dirty. Wet. It was gross. He definitely would have noticed it if it was like this before… um. Before.

He kept his strides even, his head high. As he passed, he saw a small monster look at him from a distance and, incredibly coincidentally, run in the opposite direction. Very quickly. Whatever Papyrus felt at that (Nothing. It was completely unrelated to him), he pushed it down with a tight grin. 

  
  


As he walked, the realization dawned on him how close he was getting to… wowie, it had been almost a year, hadn't it? A year since…

He swapped out his cool sunglasses for another pair of cool sunglasses from his cool jacket pocket, tossing the old pair unceremoniously behind him, since those were starting to get all… broken-y. Or maybe spontaneously dirty from the surrounding areas. That made sense, he thought. And he needed to be able to see if he was going to fulfill his latest assignment!!

It wasn't her… or it wasn't that… um, it wasn't the house that he was worried it was.  Not that he was worried. He was cool, cool, cool and extremely very loyal and he didn't really feel anything at all except being cool but it would have been… it would have… um.

Anyway, it was the house next door. 

  
  



	59. Renaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just some dialogue (monologue?) that was going to accompany an idea i wanted to mess with, but I don't like it so if I do use this idea I'm going to do it differrently. I may have uploaded another version of this??

Your name is… uh… papyrus. Remember, bro?

You’re my big brother and you practically raised me ever since we were kids and we always did puzzles together and read books and and ---

  
  
  
  
  
  


...your name is Papyrus. You’re… um… my… my little brother. We’ve always been a team, but um… yeah, we also… didn’t… do a lot of stuff together? But… we still can! We can make new traditions. And they’re all, um… new. So there aren’t any… anyway. We… live in snowdin. Now. Or… uh… we always lived in Snowdin. Because you hate hotland. Yeah. hate it. Can’t stand it. Never want to go there, or… know anything about it. It’s just bad. The whole place. You just avoid it. You wouldn’t go there… for any reason. Only if you were really desperate and you had to and even then you would try to go through it as quickly as possible. Cus itjust… sucks a lot. Everything about it is bad.

And um… you uh… you don’t care much about most science. You don’t hate it, it’s just not… um… your thing. You don’t look it up much. But if you know something, that’s probably fine?

And… you’re here because you’re just… feeling a little under the weather right now, Papyrus. You… you had a nasty… illness? And it just… really did a number on you. T-thats why you don’t remember much. And why your head is kinda fuzzy. And why things are weird right now. But you hate being in bed and you’re getting better and stronger every day, and pretty soon, you’re gonna come home, okay? Papyrus? You’re going to come home, because you’re my brother, and my best friend, and my hero, and you’re great and the coolest and I love you. 

Papyrus. Papyrus. Just… just remember that, okay? That’s your name. Papyrus.

Okay?  
  


...okay. 


	60. Swap Pap meets Fell Sans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some stuff from a Underswap/Underfell crossover I want to do. This scene will be different when i actually do the fic.

The exchange of information was incredibly one-sided. Papyrus noticed early on, of course. He was prone to rambling and projecting and even oversharing in the right contexts, but he wasn’t lacking self-awareness either. And he knew that New-Sans wasn’t just tolerating his habits, he was fueling him on, listening intently, and keeping his own jaw shut. (Metaphorically speaking… but also literally)

 

“What? No. my bro’s a smug, self absorbed prick. The biggest asshole i ever met in my life, okay? I don’t even like him. I hate him. Get it straight.”

“...Oh.”

Because there was nothing he could say to that. He knew, technically, ‘Sans’ wasn’t talking about him, but some alternate him, some evil twin, another self… but not him. That didn’t take the sting out. Papyrus… he tried to keep his cool demeanor up but man, was that hard. Because that subject was just a little too sore, and coming from that mouth, that voice… it was like he had an open wound, bone peeled back to reveal oozing, dripping, bleeding, raw marrow, and this Sans had stuck a phalange inside, and begun to stir. He couldn’t handle it if his brother hated him. He couldn’t. And he didn’t. Sans didn’t. Sans didn’t hate him. No, Sans didn’t hate him. …Did he?

“Easy. listen, my bros a dick. He deserves me talking shit about him but i can already tell you’re at least a little better? than he is. And… maybe hate’s a strong word. Okay?”

  
  



	61. sugar rush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If tumblr has to suffer, so do all of you.
> 
> https://drundertalescum.tumblr.com/post/171866670968/so-what-if-sans-all-versions-of-him-just-got

One morning in Underswap, the wind howls through the trees. The snow sparkles, fresh, pure, and white. Little Blue is out on patrol with his lazy brother, I-still-refuse-to-call-him-“Stretch”-so-let’s-go-with-”Swap.” 

It seems like just another ordinary day.

But then they hear something, out in the woods. It sounds like vibrating and rattling and bones. Confused, the brothers charge into action to see what the cause is.

In the middle of a clearing that wasn’t there just the day before, they find a small skeleton shaking violently in the snow. The brothers look at each other with confusion and concern before rushing to the stranger’s aid, picking him up out of the snow.

The look on his face is deranged. Manic. Too wide. A grin that’s too solid and permanent, even for one of their own kind. He sees the brothers and laughs. And laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

And then he says something that chills the boys to the bone:

> hi every1 im new!!!!!!! holds up spork my name is sans but u can call me t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m!!!!!!!! or jus red lol…as u can see im very random!!!! thats why i came here, 2 meet random ppl like me _… im 13 years old (im mature 4 my age tho!!) i like 2 watch invader zim w/ my bartender (im bi if u dont like it deal w/it) its our favorite tv show!!! bcuz its SOOOO random!!!! hes random 2 of course but i want 2 meet more random ppl =) like they say the more the merrier!!!! lol…neways i hope 2 make alot of freinds here so give me lots of commentses!!!!  
> DOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <— me bein random again _^ hehe…toodles!!!!!  
>   
> love and waffles,  
>   
> t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m (red)

His shaking starts back up. It’s clear what happened here: The amount of energy he gained from whatever hidden cache of sweets he consumed caused him to rip a hole in the space-time continuation, transporting him to this dimension.

Blue frowns and looks up at his brother. “I DON’T LIKE THIS, PAPYRUS. SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG WITH HIM…”

The brothers decide to leave.

 

 


	62. Spoil Sport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick writing from an AU of an AU that I wanted to mess with but don't like enough to post as a REAL THING. So here it stays, in the dump!
> 
> warnings for a toxic, unhealthy family situation, obsessiveness, some severe power imbalances, manipulation, and if you wanna read into it: abuse, implied character death, and fandom salt

Papyrus was always just a bit spoiled. 

It wasn't that he was stuck up. He was, a bit. Just a hair. A trace! Maybe! But it wasn't that, really. He'd just always been like that. 

 

Maybe if the “blame” needed to be on anyone, it would be on his brother. There was a fairly sizable age gap there, and Papyrus, being the baby, had been doted on constantly. Nothing had ever been too much or out of bounds for him. If he waved something, he got it. Simple and easy. 

Everything had always been simple and easy for Papyrus. That's how his whole life had gone. If he wanted the house to be red, it was red. If the next day it needed to be blue, then by God, his brother would paint it blue. If he got into trouble at school, it was the school that would soon see the trouble. If someone didn't like Papyrus, they would be greeted with an interrogation until they could adequately explain why. And with a grinning skeleton starting straight into their soul, generally most could not explain. 

Papyrus didn't know that part, though. He just knew that things generally always went his way. It was like magic! Only that wasn't really how magic worked, so it wasn't like magic at all. 

As a child, he'd been content to simply accept it. His brother lives him very much and just wanted to look out for him, and beyond that, he was just a lucky dude! But as an adult, he had to admit it… maybe wasn't the healthiest arrangement. 

It wasn't about the money. His brother made plenty of money, and they wouldn't be asking for much no matter how much went to Papyrus. But it was about how Papyrus didn't have a job. It was about how he couldn't repay every favor and gift. He did try, but his brother always shot him down. Said he deserved the best things and that was that. And it was hard to argue with him. Papyrus was pretty great.

 

But still. 

Still, it was… odd. And wrong. And somehow… lonely??? His brother worked a lot, and it was a big house. No matter how much Papyrus had it filled with his stuff, it always felt like something was missing. There was something empty there. Something unsettling. 

So Papyrus didn't stay home! 

 

He went all over the Underground. Found little things to entertain him. Tried to make friends, but… well, he wasn't good at getting things his brother couldn't buy him. 

~~ (He'd tried of course. He could buy Papyrus every friendship he desired, if it would work, but… it had been a terrible experiment, in the end. Papyrus had been so unhappy, and he couldn't allow that. His greatest task in life was to keep his brother happy. And really, allowing strange people who didn't care for him to be responsible for him was a risk. If it was just the two of them against the world, it was better still than just one.) ~~

Papyrus's brother never talked about stuff with him. He never answered questions. Sometimes he would let something slip, then quickly cover it up. Papyrus didn't know what he was hiding. He didn't see anything he  **_could_ ** be hiding. But the exceptions proved the rule. There was something being hidden from him. Something big. 

But he didn't know where to look. And it's not like his brother wouldn't notice it he went snooping. He noticed nearly everything.

So it was just a thing he learned to accept. Smile and nod. Say he was happy. Lie, like his brother was always lying to him.

Everything was fine. 

And it was the easy way. And he was used to the easy way. 

 

Papyrus decided to join the Royal Guard. 

Helping other people sounded like fun for a change! And if it maybe didn't seem like something his brother could possibly buy him, maybe that was his ulterior motive. A small act of rebellion for a lifetime that had been perfectly perfect for him. 

So he enlisted! And it was... so very, very odd.

The captain was awful to him. Cruel and mean. She slammed a door in his face! She called him weird! Told him he was spoiled! Made fun of his brother! Called him a brat! Mocked him when he fell down! Said his magic was clumsy! Accused him of never lifting a bullet once in his life! And told him he wasn't getting in unless he could prove himself her, and he'd never had to prove himself to anyone ever!

He loved it. 

Finally, some honesty! 

 

He kept this goal a secret from his brother, and everything was so gloriously difficult. Undyne was hard on him, and he got the impression she was  **_extra_ ** hard on him. And magic was fun, actually, and so was fighting, and doing this all day meant he wasn't quite as lonely! He had a reason not to be in his room or in that house that never felt quite right or safe no matter what he did! Finally, the end goal wasn't not being home, it was something else entirely! And not being home was merely the byproduct!

Papyrus worked hard. 

He'd never worked hard in his life but here he was! It was so delightfully different! 

The day Undyne agreed he was getting better was the happiest of his life. 

The day Undyne agreed to train him personally after hours was the actual happiest of his life, overthrowing the previous happiest moment in a violent coup of warm and fuzzy feelings!

 

 

The day Undyne accepted him into the Royal Guard was the day the novelty wore off. 

And Papyrus did not know what to do. 

 

And so he went to his brother to tell him the news, and ask for help, as he would always do. 

“WINGDINGS… I NEED YOU TO FIX SOMETHING FOR ME.”

 

* * *

 

Wingdings had Papyrus officially removed from the induction list of the Royal Guard.

 

And a day later, Papyrus regretted it. 

So he undid it.

 

And then he regretted it. 

So Wingdings undid it again.

 

Papyrus seemed to notice the fluctuations more than normal, and he didn't seem to be anything close to happy with any outcome the elder brother explored. Everything lead to anxiety and doubt. Every road lead somewhere he could not allow his oor brother to fester. It simply wasn't right. 

Maybe he'd have to scrap the timeline. He could. He would. It was all fake, after all. It wouldn't be the first time. This time, he'd keep him even happier. Learn from these mistakes. Either way, he was doing a better job. A much, much better job. Even the barest minimum effort would improve upon the foundations with which Wingdings was building on. But that first time had been awful because of his absence (and the other one's presence), and so he felt it was his duty to keep his brother happy, for all the timelines he couldn't, and all the timelines that  _ he _ wouldn't. 

 

On Attempt #27, Papyrus never attempted to join the Royal Guard. He seemed markedly less happy for that particular span of time. 

However, the payoff seemed reasonable, and anxiety and depression were at this time kept to a minimum. 

 

He would likely try again, though. Surely he could do better than that. 

**Author's Note:**

> From now on, I will probably post these as I add them instead of in waves, but we'll see. I must sleep for tonight!


End file.
